


maybe you can show me (how to love)

by Japery



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2019-2020 NHL Season, Anxiety Attacks, Bump It Man I Love Therapy, Butt Plugs, Getting Together, He's Not Dead He Just Got Traded, M/M, Rimming, Rivals to Lovers, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, The Ghost of Tyson Barrie, The Mortifying Ideal of Moving On, Unsafe Sex, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23812384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Japery/pseuds/Japery
Summary: "It'd be better for your game," Nate starts, slowly, as if he had planned out all the words one by one. "If we started having sex."André blinks. "Uh, say that again?"
Relationships: Andre Burakovsky/Nathan MacKinnon
Comments: 49
Kudos: 300





	maybe you can show me (how to love)

**Author's Note:**

> i don't claim to know and mean no harm to the people represented in this fic, if you found this by googling yourself or anyone you know, i'd advise you to click right on out of here.
> 
> sometimes you just read a detail in an athletic article and spend months writing a 22k fic that it takes being in lockdown to finish
> 
> thanks to [annie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalmatienne/pseuds/dalmatienne) and [erica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaspooryorick/pseuds/alaspooryorick), and for beta-ing, burky for loving the weeknd so much that i had to use a line from "blinding lights" for the title, and beyoncé, who i couldn't write any of this fic on my laptop without going to her wikipedia page and copy and pasting the é for andré's name.

"You need to shoot more." MacKinnon says, cornering André at breakfast in the player's room as he's halfway through his first bite of blueberry muffin. Then, MacKinnon brings one big hand up, wraps it around the muffin still partway in André's mouth, and snatches it away. 

"You shouldn't eat that either." MacKinnon says declaratively. The skin around André's lips stings at the touch of his fingers, bristling at the phantom loss of sweetness.

André thinks about protesting, makes a little noise of protest as he swallows the tiny bit of muffin he managed to get before it was cruelly taken away by his new team's star center. Before he gets a chance to actually say anything though, MacKinnon throws his muffin carelessly towards the trash bin. It bounces off Makar's chest--he's spent the last five minutes trying to decide which bin to put the disposable cup he had put his banana peel in and contaminated--or whatever it was, André hadn't been paying attention. Makar squawks, betrayed, stumbling as he tries to juggle the muffin between his already full hands. MacKinnon ignores him, bright blue eyes still focused completely on André.

André tries to think of something suave to say, some cutting chirp with the sociopathic accuracy of an eighth grader like Tom would pull out, or level a death glare at him that would make it clear that André hunted men for sport and suffered only one fool, like Nicky would. Something to avoid this clear hazing ritual on his first day of practice--although André had been led to believe, from a source as reliable as the captain himself, that such things weren't the Avalanche's style, or at least not Nathan MacKinnon's style. Maybe Gabe wasn't all that reliable, in retrospect, which André should've probably guessed; beautiful people were often not so reliable as you would expect.

"Uh," André says instead of anything suave or useful, like an idiot. Some crumbs fall from his mouth as he talks, tumbling onto the table. MacKinnon stares at the seam of his crumb-covered mouth. "I'm André. Are you bullying me?"

MacKinnon blinks at him, the hyperfocus of his gaze softening into confusion. André notices the bags under his eyes for the first time. He'd stayed up, for whatever reason, on the first real day of the season.

"I know your name." MacKinnon grumbles, turning away for just a second, hiding his face from the light. "I spent all night watching your highlights and looking at your stats."

André cocks his head at him. "So you could bully me?" He asks slowly. MacKinnon was clearly as dedicated to this as he was to everything else, which would be impressive if it wasn't literally snatching André's food out of his mouth.

MacKinnon rubs two fingers over the space between his eyes and groans. "I'm not trying to bully you," he gets out through gritted teeth. He pushes at the table between them, shaking it under his strength. 

"Who are we bullying?" EJ asks, sauntering in with his trademark toothless grin set for mischief. He spots Makar trying to pick up the remains of the muffin scattered among the trash he had actually meant to throw away. "Is it Cale? I'd love to bully Cale." He looms over Cale, plucking the muffin from his grasp and taking a large, exaggerated bite from the side André didn't bite. "When the Blue Fairy turned you into a real boy was that straight from the Cabbage Patch factory or did a child have to Velveteen Rabbit you with love first?" Cale blushes furiously from his spot on the floor, even as EJ extends a hand to help him up.

"Bullying is a self-perpetuating cycle of violence that we have to combat with kindness and understanding," Gabe recites dutifully, stifling a yawn as he walks in. "What's up, is Z wearing cheetah print again?" 

"MacKinnon is bullying me on my first day," André pipes up. MacKinnon shoots a glare at him. André sticks his tongue out at him and continues. "He insulted my playing and stole my muffin."

EJ gasps dramatically from where he's finishing off said muffin. "He stole your muffin? For shame, Nathaniel!"

"Do I have to call Tys, Nate?" Gabe asks, and André doesn't know him well enough to tell if he's teasing or not.

MacKinnon huffs, his shoulders a flat, boxy line. He pushes himself off from the table, letting it rattle as he goes. "No one has to call anybody, shut the hell up." he grumbles, slouching off towards the lockers.

"Watch out for muffins." André tells him solemnly as he goes. MacKinnon stares at him, and André offers him his most playful smile. 

MacKinnon softens, just a little, and then something shifts in his expression, the hint of a smile disappearing into a thin, hard line. He takes a step backwards, like he's been shot, and shakes his head, before rushing out of the room as quickly as possible.

"Is he always like this?" André asks the room.

"No, he's just--" Gabe starts, before EJ cuts him off, picking a crumb off his collar and launching it towards the back of Gabe's head.

"Yeah, but he's gotten a lot worse."

//

André tells himself if he knows anything, he knows how to skate. Ice is ice, from the ponds he'd skate on as a kid in Sweden, to the DC rink he started his dream on, to the Vegas arena his team won a Cup on, to here in this practice rink, a mile up from the ground he knows. His breath is short and halting, and his edges are rusty, and it doesn't feel like home.

But André knows better than anybody: you can call a place home, and it won't be what you need. You can love a place with your whole heart, and it can't always love you back. 

He leans up against the boards, catching his breath for a second as he watches Cale and Girard skate circle around each other in some extended edging exercise. There's a flash of burgundy out of the corner of his eye. André barely has time to put his hands up in front of his face to avoid the flurry of snow as MacKinnon skids to a stop in front of him.

"You can't receive passes for shit." MacKinnon says, sounding more annoyed than he really has any right to be. "And you're not shooting more." He frowns, grip tight on his stick. "I told you to shoot more."

"I just got here." André reminds him, frowning himself now. He glances over at the coaching staff, Bednar watching Donskoi work on his stickhandling, blissfully not giving any mind to André or MacKinnon.

"That's not an excuse," MacKinnon says harshly. "You're better than this." He says, like he has any fucking right.

It stings, André can't deny it, bristles against the set of his jaw. He'd said as much to himself game after game, and worse. "Didn't know you were an expert on me." 

"I told you, I looked you up," MacKinnon says, defiant. "You do so many things right. You just need to shoot your shot."

André raises an eyebrow at him, and looks him over. MacKinnon is all broad shoulders and thrumming energy, power coiled in on itself like a viper. André still doesn't know if MacKinnon wants to help him or swallow him whole.

But then again, what does he have to lose either way?

"Show me, then." André says, tipping his chin up. 

MacKinnon's eyes catch on the set of his jaw, the pale skin of his neck, and he licks his lips. André preens, just a little. "Show you what?"

André smiles at him. "Show me how you want me to shoot."

//

MacKinnon works with a single-minded determination that André has never quite seen before--and he's been on teams with Connor McDavid and Nicklas Bäckström. He sauces André one-timer after one-timer, guides his angles and comes up behind him when he's being too lax on the wrist. They chase Grubi out of the net, and keep going on the empty net until André is bone tired, heaving from the exertion, heated all over from a masterclass session with the best thing to come out of Cole Harbour since the last best thing to come out of Cole Harbour.

MacKinnon himself is barely out of breath when he slaps a hand on André's shoulder blade, squeezing his bicep companionably. "I'll pick you up at 5 tomorrow, we'll get back on it, bro." 

André slumps under MacKinnon's touch. He wants to laugh, obviously MacKinnon's being ridiculous, since morning skate isn't even until 9am tomorrow, but he really can't do anything more than groan. 

André wakes up in the morning to a loud, insistent pounding at his door, so frantic he springs up to answer it wearing nothing but his boxers. He stumbles past the stack of boxes in his living room, narrowly avoiding stubbing his toe on a box that V had helpfully labeled 'Dildos' that couldn't possibly just be André's dildos, and slides down the hallway to the door. And of course, it's Nathan MacKinnon, holding a to-go cup of coffee and arching an eyebrow at André's abs.

"You're not ready?" MacKinnon asks, his lips a thin white line. 

"Depends on what I'm getting ready for," André answers, his voice heavy with sleep. "Is it fun?" He scratches his stomach absentmindedly, and MacKinnon glares at the lazy path of his hand.

Sure, André's had this dream a couple times since he got traded, but it wasn't usually MacKinnon, and he usually wasn't wearing so many clothes, and it was never 5 in the fucking morning.

"I told you yesterday I'd be picking you up," MacKinnon reminds him. 

"Did you?"

"Did I?" MacKinnon echoes mockingly. "I tried calling you, but you didn't answer."

André vaguely remembers stirring to a faint buzzing under his pillow a little while ago, but he'd just figured it was a dream and jacked off until he coaxed himself back to sleep. He looks down at himself, checking to see if he had enough dignity to tuck himself back in, and he's relieved to see he had that at least. 

"How do you know where I live?" André asks. He hasn't had anyone over yet--barely unpacked and badly furnished as his apartment was. As far as he knew, the only teammate who knew where he lived was Grubi, who helped him move, but Grubi wouldn't just hand out his address like that for free.

"I've got my sources," MacKinnon says cryptically. "Works for everyone but EJ."

"That's creepy." André notes placidly. At least Grubi didn't betray him, whatever that meant. MacKinnon shrugs, jostling the coffee cup a little. "Is that for me?"

"No, I wanted to drink it in front of you like a psycho," MacKinnon snorts, pressing the cup into his hands. "I didn't know your order, so I just got you mine."

André looks at it hesitantly, still a little unsure whether MacKinnon means to poison him or not, and takes a slow, careful sip. The coffee is still warm and heady, dark, but with a hint of something smooth and nutty. "What's in this?"

"Oatmilk," MacKinnon shifts a little on his heels. "Do you like it?"

"It tastes like nothing." André says cheerfully, and takes another experimental sip. MacKinnon stares at him. "All right, come in," André sighs, opening the rest of the door to let MacKinnon through. He swivels on his heel, putting his back to MacKinnon to lead him into his living room.

"Um." MacKinnon says. André glances back at him, and he's still on the porch, eyes trained to André's retreating back, his mouth a little agape.

"Are you coming or are you just gonna wait out there?" André calls over his shoulder, and MacKinnon seems to snap himself out of whatever fugue state André had put him in by glibly insulting his taste in coffee.

"Right, uh. I'll come. I'm coming--I'll--right." 

André rolls his eyes, and slips into his room. The Ikea box with the unassembled dresser leans against the side of his wall, logo tucked in so as to not be too accusatory. He pats it as he swings into the room, leaving MacKinnon to entertain himself. He sets the coffee next to the mess of clothes busting out of his big luggage, searching for something clean to wear.

When he's found an appropriate Avs ensemble--ripping open one of the shirts the team had given him from the plastic for freshness--he finds MacKinnon in his living room, staring at his boxes with his big arms crossed over his barrel chest.

"Do you really have that many dildos?" MacKinnon asks, with a weird amount of curiosity.

"Do you not?" André asks back, taking another sip of his coffee. He yawns lightly, running a hand through his curls. "Are we going, or did you want to borrow one, or what?"

MacKinnon colors and scowls, turning away from the box, and then André in a surly little half-circle swivel. "Are you ready?" He asks, refusing still to glance at André. "We're already late."

André nods at him and points towards the door. "We can test out my collection later," he offers, grin crooked. MacKinnon blinks at him, and pushes past him brusquely out the door. MacKinnon might have been blushing, or it might've been André's imagination, but he got a kick out of it either way.

//

MacKinnon drives them to the rink, steadfastly ignoring André as he rifles through his glove compartment.

"So you go this early every day?" André yawns, as he examines the mountain of faded receipts--MacKinnon didn't seem like such the Dairy Queen type, but he seems focused on this Doja Cat song about eating ass he's playing on the aux, so André supposes people can contain multitudes. 

"Yeah, pretty much we do," MacKinnon says, furrowing his brow as he turns a corner. Before André can ask about the 'we,' he continues, "Can you stop rooting through my shit like some kind of raccoon, dude?"

"Nah." André stretches in his seat, pressing some of the half-crumpled receipts in his fingers. "Why're you keeping all this stuff anyway? Does it matter that you got--" André squints at some of the faded type, holding it up to the light. "Two Oreo Blizzards at 11pm on April 7th, 2018?"

Nate stiffens, and lurches over to snatch the receipt from André's hand. "Don't touch that!" He almost growls, smoothing the receipt out on his chest before folding it and putting it in his wallet. Someone behind them honks, and André blinks, and MacKinnon seems to remember himself. "Stop touching my stuff." MacKinnon says, voice clipped and strange.

The rest of the ride is quiet, except for the music, and mercifully short.

Josty and Cale are already in the parking lot when they arrive, and André decides to stay with them instead of following MacKinnon while he somehow threatens--Josty says charm, but from what André's seen he doesn't seem capable of that--the rink staff to let them in early. 

"So you're his new project, huh?" Josty asks, glancing over from where he's drawing a dick in the dust on MacKinnon's back windshield. "Thought it was just gonna be the kid this year. He's getting cocky."

Cale rolls his eyes. He's turning one of the dicks Josty has already drawn into a heart. "I'm practically the same age as you," Cale reminds him.

Josty ignores him and sets to work on perfecting his art. 

"Does he do this a lot?" André asks. He cranes his head over Josty's shoulder. "Give that one ball hair. Balls need hair so it looks real." 

"He didn't have one last year," Josty explains, glancing towards André for a second, answering André's question and pointedly ignoring his suggestion.

Josty sticks out his tongue and looks sideways at his creation, shoving Cale in the shoulder when he realizes what he's doing to the other one. Cale shrugs at him impassively, putting a smiley face in the heart he'd made. Josty shakes his head, and turns back to André.

"Nate's probably got more time on his hands now that Other Tys is g--"

"We can go in now." MacKinnon interrupts. He glances at his windshield appraisingly. "Cute, Cale. Not your best work, Josty. Would've been better with hairs, bro."

"How do you know I didn't make the heart?" Josty protests, indignant. Cale glows red in his cheeks, clearly pleased.

"Because I know you?" MacKinnon responds. 

He meets eyes with André, gaze inscrutable. His eyes are very blue, André notes, not for the first time. "Come on, then." He finally says. 

André's not sure if that means he's forgiven for whatever crime he committed by commenting on MacKinnon's car trash, but he follows anyway.

MacKinnon runs the three of them ragged before anyone else even shows up, practicing one timers with Cale and making André and Josty work on their wrist shots. He doesn't say anything more substantive to André than comments on his stickhandling, and vague tutting whenever he misses the net. André's getting some good work in, but it's still awkward.

When everyone else starts to file in, André corners Grubi between drills. 

"Can you give me a ride home?" André asks, in German, and with his most charming smile for good measure.

Grubi is unaffected, and raises a well-coiffed eyebrow at him, the visor of his mask glinting from where it's pushed up over his forehead. "You get your license revoked for trying to seduce your way out of a ticket or something?"

André balks at him. "No? Why is that your first thought?" He wasn't that much of a mess, thanks very much. 

"Oh." Grubi pauses, thinking his weird goalie thoughts. "You forget how to drive?" André thinks about smacking him, but he doesn't think he'd win that fight.

"MacKinnon's pissed at me and he drove me here, okay?" André admits. Grubi looks at him pityingly. 

"You've been here for five minutes, you already piss off the team's second best player." Grubi muses, completely deadpan. André can't argue with him, it's a record even for him, but--

"Who's the best player on the team?"

"Me, obviously." Grubi snorts. One of the trainers calls for Grubi to get back in net, and he starts to put his mask back on. "You should make up with him. Do whatever you did when you fought with Djoos."

"I can't just suck his dick about it!" André snaps, in English now, but Grubi is already skating away. 

EJ, passing by, shoots him a terrifying smile half-resolved into a leer. "Always works for me!" He cackles, snowing André as he goes by.

André's still brushing snow off of his pants when MacKinnon chooses to sidle up to him.

"Run a passing drill with me, bro."

André frowns at him, confused. MacKinnon looks impassive, if a little annoyed with the music choice filtering through the speakers. "I thought we were fighting."

MacKinnon rolls his eyes. "Because you're nosy? Dude, if I stopped working with everyone who couldn't keep their hands to themselves on this team, I wouldn't have a team."

"Oh," André says. "Are you still bringing me home?"

"Did you want to walk?" MacKinnon asks. André shakes his head. MacKinnon snorts and, after a pause, brushes his knuckles against André's shoulder. "C'mon, I want you to show me what you can do with your wrists up close."

He skates off, and André takes a second to watch him go, the relentless grace of his stride before he explodes into a sprint through the neutral zone. André isn't quite fast enough to catch him, but he'll be damned if he doesn't have fun trying.

//

On the car ride back to André's, he tries to keep his hands to himself. It's really a lot harder than he thought it would be, and he ends up having to sit on his own hands to stop himself from touching anything.

"Dude, what are you doing?" MacKinnon asks.

"I'm not touching anything." André says. MacKinnon squints at him, scrunching his nose slightly.

"You act like you've been 'Big-ed', bro." André looks at him blankly. "You know, like the movie 'Big?' With Tom Hanks?" MacKinnon clarifies, supremely unhelpfully. "Like you're a kid that got turned into an adult by like, magic and stuff."

"Like Shazam?" André asks. MacKinnon waves his hand dismissively, finding André's house and settling them gently on the curb. MacKinnon looks like he wants to say something, so André makes no move to get out of the car, and lets him speak.

"It's kinda like Shazam, but with less spandex and no powers." MacKinnon explains, barreling through blithely. "Every year, Tys and I would spend a night watching all these old ass Tom Hanks movies he loves so much, but like, none of the ones everyone knows like Ghostbusters. Weird ones, like the 'Burbs, and Joe vs. the Volcano, and most of them are like stupid old and kinda bad but he loves them, and he'd make popcorn on the stove and try to slip popcorn down my shirt every time it looked like I wasn't paying attention, even though both of us have already seen them all like a million times." 

MacKinnon says more words to André there than he has in the entire time they'd known each other, but André isn't entirely sure they're all meant for him. His cheeks are reddened in the mid-afternoon light, and he looks almost fond caught in the memory.

"I didn't think Josty would be a big Tom Hanks fan." André muses, and MacKinnon looks at him oddly, and chuckles.

"No, Josty can barely sit still long enough to watch porn, I'm talking about Brutes. Tyson Barrie." MacKinnon explains, and then he realizes what he's saying. He gives a small cough, turning away towards the window, and André can see his smile fade. For a second, André catches his face in the rearview, blue eyes impossibly wide. He looks embarrassed, and sad, and angry at himself, and terribly lonely all at once. He steels himself, sets his jaw, and then it's gone.

André has never met Tyson Barrie, anywhere that wasn't on the ice. He'd heard stories, of course, of varying degrees of graciousness; the horror stories about his dad, a lot of stories about parties on Victoria beaches gone awry, the whole wrestling at Worlds thing. He knew that he was a good player, and a better guy, and everyone here seemed to absolutely love him.

MacKinnon, it seems, even more than most.

"I miss people too, you know," André says, as gently as he can, slipping his hands out to his lap. "My best people." 

André knows what it's like to live out of your own context. That's what they are, he thinks. People a whole country removed from the places--from the people--that make them make sense. He doesn't know what it's like to be the one left behind, not quite. But he knows what it's like to leave, and that's something.

"We can talk about it." André offers. "It might be easier with me than with--" Someone you know, he wants to say. It feels inadequate. "Than with everyone else. You can tell me about him, maybe."

MacKinnon stares at him, inscrutable. His eyes bore holes into André's and past him, like he's trying to hollow André out and see what's there. Then, he smiles, small, but real.

"I have a therapist for that," MacKinnon says. "But it sounds nice. We should have dinner sometime," He smiles again at André, bigger this time, veneers shining. "I won't be the only one talking, okay?"

"Okay," André says, something warm and light fluttering in his chest. There's a pause between them, something hovering heavy in the air. God, MacKinnon's eyes are blue.

"I should go." MacKinnon says brusquely, finally tearing his gaze from André's. "I'll see you, Dré."

André remembers himself and pushes himself up to open the car door. "Thanks for the ride, MacKinnon," he says.

MacKinnon stares at him again, and laughs. "Just call me Nate, okay?" He asks, before André closes the door and watches him go.

//

André drags Grubi to the local King Soopers to get groceries, under the excuse that he wants to make sure he's actually eating real food during the homestand to open the season instead of figuring out something to cook for Nate. Grubi, so far, has spent most of the trip getting his own grocery shopping done and getting André to buy it for him. 

André glides through the store, jumping up on the back of the cart and letting momentum push him as Grubi inspects the expiration dates on the milk cartons. There's a little display of Halloween accessories, one of those fake skull bowls where you put your hand in its mouth to get the candy. André can't resist putting his hand in, and he starts to when the little plastic jaw closes over his hand, the eyes lighting up as it cackles at him. 

André smacks the skull with his fist so he can snatch the other hand away. It laughs mockingly at him, so André flips it off.

Grubi glances at him, unimpressed. 

André rubs his wounded hand on his chest, ignoring his goaltender's palpable scorn. "Nate's on some weird diet right?"

Grubi squints at him, like he's looking for the trick. If it were any other goalie, save Holts, André might even be intimidated. Instead, he beams at Grubi.

"He only eats sweet potato and chickpea pasta." Grubi finally says. "Has he gotten to you already?"

"He wants to have dinner or something," André shrugs. "I want to know what to expect." 

Grubi calls him an idiot in German under his breath, fully aware André can hear and understand him. "Could've sworn you were fighting," he sighs, and runs a hand through his hair dramatically. "Well, come on, then," he says, listing in the direction of the produce. When his back is turned, André picks up a carton of oatmilk and smuggles it into the cart. 

André bounds up to a bin full of purplish looking root vegetables and juggles one in his hand. 

"Those are yams, dumbass." Grubi crows from the other side of the bin.

André stares at the vegetables, cocking his head slightly. "What's the difference?" He asks.

Grubi taps the price sign between the bins. The card does say yams. "You forget how to read, too?" He grumbles.

He keeps the yam, having already touched it, and sidles around to the sweet potatoes, which are less colorful. André inspects them closely. They look a little boring, which kind of explains why Nate loves them so much.

He finds five good looking ones to slip into the bag, though he doesn't really have any idea what makes a sweet potato good, and adds the yam for good measure. "All right," André says, grinning at a bored looking Grubi. "Where'd you put the scanner?"

He looks around Grubi, who is empty-handed, and the cart, to see if it fell behind the packets of Grubi's applesauce. 

"What're you looking for?" Grubi asks warily.

"The scanny gun. So we can pay." André says, making a little gun with his fingers. "Pew pew?" He tries. "Have you been doing the phone thing?" 

Something finally clicks for Grubi. Maybe he remembers where he stashed it. "Dré, this isn't a Giant. They don't have those here."

"Huh," André says, putting his finger gun down. Something twists in his chest, ice cold. "Weird." 

"You'll get used to it, bud." Grubi says, trying for comfort. He bumps André's shoulder companionably, and André puts on a smile. 

"It's fine. We should head out, yeah?" André gestures towards the checkout lines, marching himself towards them with a little more speed than he should.

"Burk," Grubi calls out in warning, and André turns around to tell him it's fine again, he's fine, when he runs into Tyson Barrie.

André smacks into the side of him, jostling some packs of Pepsi on the pallet next to him. "Ten dollars off Avs tickets? Could only be at King Soopers!" Barrie says, in a distorted, but cheerful voice coming from the logo in his jersey. 

"God, I can't believe they still have that thing." Grubi marvels, and André realizes that Barrie is a cardboard cutout for an expired Avs promotion. "Do you think they'll let us take it if I give the manager your number?"

"You're not pimping me out for a cardboard cutout of a guy I've never met." André tells him. Grubi sighs performatively.

André studies it for a second, checking out Barrie's tousled curls, deep dimples, and easygoing smile. Even his cardboard standee looks charming and approachable--it makes sense that they hadn't taken it down, a summer removed from Barrie being on the team.

They don't get the cutout, despite Grubi doing his best to charm the clerk at checkout, not after a woman tries to pick up one of the fallen Pepsi bottles and it blasts her and several other customers with a geyser of sticky brown soda.

"Yup, if you ever want an autograph, ask for me, Pavel Francouz." Grubi transitions seamlessly as the clerk stares at the horror scene in the other aisle, pulling the cart along to usher André out and clear across the parking lot. 

"That was your fault," Grubi grumbles. He shoves a reusable bag into André's trunk petulantly. "I almost had it."

André sticks his tongue out at him, and he smacks André in the face with a pack of marshmallows in return.

Later, as he's helping Grubi take his groceries in--and he'd ended up getting more than André did, all things said and done--André can't help but ask. 

"Nate and Barrie. They were really close, right?" He asks, carefully, hefting a cold jug of milk in one hand. 

Grubi considers. "This is the most codependent team I've ever been on." He finally says.

André bites his bottom lip, and raises an eyebrow. "Even…?" He gestures in the air with his free hand. He can't quite bring himself to finish, but Grubi nods anyway.

"Nate and Tyson." Grubi is careful here, trying to find the right words. "They pulled each other in the directions they needed to go," he tries, an odd metaphor from one of the most grounded people André knew. Thinking about it, he knew people like that. Polar opposites, who gravitated towards each other to settle into an orbit that was stronger than its parts. He'd played with them his whole career.

"Were they together?" He asks, finally coming out with the question he wanted to ask. 

Grubi shrugs. "You can never really tell, on this team. I've learned it's easier not to meddle." 

"Well, what if I want to meddle?" André grumbles crossly. 

Grubi bops him on the forehead. "Meddle on your time, not mine."

//

André goes into his first appointment with his new therapist a little early. He's been feeling fine enough through the preseason, but he figures it's better to check in before the games actually start to matter.

Dr. Juno came highly recommended by his sports psychologist in DC, who said she was a former athlete herself who did a lot of work among the Denver sports teams. 

André has had some preliminary phone sessions with her and she's seemed smart and patient enough to let him get settled, but right now his only opinion of her is that her waiting room has a lot of plants in it. 

There's a whole wall of succulents, flanked by ivy snaking up to the ceiling. André takes some time to examine an aloe plant sitting between the chairs, staring at the spines and hovering his finger over them, willing every part of himself not to touch.

"What're you doing here?" 

André looks up, and there's Nate, coming out of Dr. Juno's office.

"I have--I'm--" André struggles to answer, gesturing vaguely towards the receptionist, a plucky woman named Velma. 

"Mr. Burakovsky, Dr. Juno'll be ready for you soon." Velma says, like a bro. Nate sort of deflates, softening a little bit.

"Sorry dude, I just thought you were here to roast me or something." He shakes his head. 

André frowns. "Would anyone do that here?" 

"No, I don't--" Nate shifts in place, looking supremely uncomfortable. "You never know how people can be, you know?"

It's a bit of a confusing question, but André nods. He knows.

"I'd never make fun," André says slowly, and he smiles at Nate. "There's so many other things about you to make fun of," he teases, and Nate chuckles, like he doesn't expect it, or like he's realizing he should.

"Mr. Burakovsky, she's ready for you," Velma says. "Mr. MacKinnon, will we see you next Wednesday?" She turns towards Nate.

André smiles at her and picks himself up from the plant.

"Yeah, I can make next Wednesday." Nate tells her, sidling sideways to let André through. "Tell Kevin good luck with his meet this weekend." 

André nods to Nate, letting the two of them talk as he heads through to Dr. Juno's office, but Nate gets a hand on his elbow. His grip is a little stronger than André would expect.

"Come to mine tonight, for dinner." Nate tells him, more a command than a question. André furrows his brow at him, and he relaxes a little bit. "To celebrate your first game. I'll cook. It'll be chill?" There's the question, the hint of uncertainty André needs.

"I'll see you then." André tells him cheerfully. 

Nate smiles at him, warmer than the heat of his grip on André's arm, and leaves him for his session.

//

"You look like Little Red Riding Hood with that basket." Grubi remarks dryly, as André tries to get the basket under his arm in a way that looks cool and casual.

"Shut up." André grits through his teeth, tucking a stray curl behind his ear . "I should never have invited you."

"Into the woods to grandmother's house," Grubi singsongs, like a freak. André doesn't have time to chirp him about it before the door opens.

Something smells good, rich and buttery wafting out the door. Nate's wearing a soft, mustard yellow woolen sweater, stretched out comfortably over his broad shoulders. He smiles at André when he sees him, eyes bright. "Hey, it's just got a few minutes in the oven and we can--hey, Grubi." Nate looks surprised to see Grubi, probably because André didn't tell him that he invited their goalie to dinner with them because he was nervous about spending an extended amount of time alone with Nathan MacKinnon.

Grubi waves.

Nate takes a second to settle himself, and blows out a breath between his teeth. That's when he notices the basket. Something prickles on the back of André's neck.

"You didn't have to bring anything, I--" His brow furrows. "Are those sweet potatoes?"

"Grubi said you liked them, so." André starts, looking beseechingly at Grubi for help. The traitor just shrugs like he has no idea what André is talking about.

Nate reaches over to sort through them, and he frowns. "Is that one a yam?" 

Panic flares up in his chest, and he snatches the yam from Nate's grasp, and bites into it like an apple. "That one's for me!" He lies, half mouth full. It tastes earthy, and starchy, and weirdly bitter. 

"Dude, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to cook that." Nate says, alarmed.

Grubi slaps André on the back. "Go spit that out!" He commands, and André's eyes widen. The hallway of Nate's condo doesn't exactly have anywhere he can spit anything out. Nate pulls him in by the scruff of his neck and points him towards a sad-looking potted plant, which André proceeds to make look even sadder. 

A few minutes later, after he's washed his mouth out a couple times in Nate's weirdly sterile bathroom, he emerges to the living room a little peaky, but no worse for wear.

"You dying?" Grubi asks nonchalantly, examining a framed Team Canada jersey leaning against the wall unhanged for whatever reason. André tells him he's not. "That was dumb," Grubi concludes.

"Where's Nate?" André asks, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. 

"He's setting up the table." Grubi tells him.

André slumps a little, settling against Nate's couch. "Great first impression," he sighs. 

"I think he's a little relieved that you're as dumb as he is, actually."

André ignores him to focus on a half-open box next to the tv, scattered with DVDs like Nate was pulling something out and then crammed them back in after he found it. It is a bit of relief to see that Nate isn't as perfect as he tries to make himself out to be.

"All set!" Nate calls out from the other room. Grubi shuffles in dutifully, and André follows behind. The places are arranged pretty fancy, if a little awkwardly spaced. Nate frowns slightly as Grubi takes the seat across from him, and André takes the middle. 

"You all good, bud?" Nate asks him, voice softer than André really thought him capable.

"We're fine." André waves off. "What're we eating?" 

Nate smiles, a little reserved now, and sets the plates down. 

"This is not sweet potatoes." Grubi says, sounding a little impressed.

Nate has prepared what looks like lobster packed into another lobster shell, sizzling on the plate. It looks warm and buttery, cheese baked in over the top and laden with cracker crumb and rich-looking white sauce. Some of the crackers are extra toasted around the edges, and the lobster seems a little crammed in, portion wise, and glancing over, Nate and Grubi's lobsters seem like a smaller size than his, but it still looks really good. 

"It's lobster thermidor." Nate says, a little nervous. "Snoop's recipe. You don't have a shellfish thing, do you?"

"I'm good." André says, looking him right in the eye to track his smile, just as Grubi echoes, "Snoop Dogg?"

"You did this by yourself?" André marvels, taking an experimental bite. The flavor is sharp and cheesy, well-formed. 

Nate ducks his head in a little. "I called in some help, but, mostly."

André almost moans around his fork. "It's good, wow, I--"

"This must be a big cheat on your diet." Grubi observes. 

Nate snaps up, like he'd forgotten Grubi was there. He rubs the back of his neck and runs his tongue over the top of his teeth. "We'll work it off in the game tomorrow." He says. It seems like he's holding something back, but it's acceptable enough for André to smack him in the shoulder. 

"Stop complaining." André says, mouth half full of lobster.

"I'm not complaining--" Grubi starts, shoving André back.

"So, André, are you ready for the game tomorrow?" Nate interrupts, voice sharp, stabbing into his lobster viciously. 

"Ready as I'll ever be." André says, swallowing around his fork. "It'll be a bit weird, still, playing with a new team." He admits.

"Well, we're better." Nate says. André looks over at him, and he looks completely serious. 

"Big, if true." André's face twitches up into a smile. 

"We'll prove it to you." Nate leans in over the table, eyes shining. He's closer than he should be. André wonders if he should have sat on the other side of the table. "I'll prove it to you." Nate says, voice low and heavy. André's breath catches in his throat, and he can suddenly feel his heart beating down to his wrist.

"Did you put black pepper in a white sauce?" Grubi suddenly says, poking at his lobster.

Nate blinks, and draws back from André as quick as he'd leaned in. "It's in the recipe." He grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Lucky I'm not Bellemare, eh?"

Nate chuckles through his teeth, weirdly. "Yeah, lucky."

"I think it's really good, man. Snoop Dogg would be proud." André pipes in, impulsively going in to brush his knuckles over Nate's broad shoulder.

Nate startles a little at the touch, and ducks his head towards his plate. "Thanks, dude." He says, and André politely pretends he isn't blushing.

He volunteers to help Nate with the dishes after, drying while Nate washes. 

André can’t stop sneaking glances at Nate's hands, big and rough and calloused, enveloping   
half a plate with his palm. He wonders, vaguely, if he’s as good with those hands off the ice.

Nate clears his throat. André stiffens, ready to make a joke about soft mitts to save himself. “So, uh, Grubi?” Nate asks, instead. André lets out a relieved breath. 

"You said we should have dinner to celebrate me, and Grubi's, you know." André doesn't want to say, his best friend here, his only friend here, the only person he actually knows that isn't the captain who André knows inviting would be an even sadder and lonelier look.

Nate seems to get it though. "That's, uh, that's good that you have him." He says, a little stilted. 

André chuckles. "Yeah, this would have been a lot harder without him." 

Nate's shoulders stiffen, and his jaw kind of twitches. "You should get him home." He says, abruptly. 

André holds up the dish he's drying. "Are you sure, we're not done?"

"It's getting late. I'll finish up." He seems more like he did a few days ago in his car, closed off and cold, except André has no idea what he's done now. "I'll see you two tomorrow." Nate waves a hand, as if dismissing him, and André doesn't see a point in arguing if he's gonna be a dick about it.

"Never make me third wheel on one of your dates again." Grubi says, as they're getting into the car.

"That wasn't a date." André grumbles, shoving the keys into the ignition. He's known Nathan MacKinnon for five minutes, and he's already sick of his mood swings.

Grubi rolls his eyes. "He broke his diet to make you Snoop Dogg's lobster thermidor, Burk." 

"So?" André huffs. "Doesn't give him an excuse to be an asshole." 

Grubi just looks at him, narrowing his eyes, and sighs heavily. "Whatever's happening here, leave me out of it."

"Nothing's happening here."

"Then it'll be even easier to leave me out of it."

//

Nate still shows up at André's too early in the morning to drag him to morning skate--despite the fact that André knows Nate lives right next to the Pepsi Center, and that he's going out of his way to make André's life just that little bit more miserable. They don't say a word to each other on the ride over, and barely anything during practice, yet again. Nate is surlier than usual, which André didn't even think was possible.

Grubi, André has decided, is full of shit, no matter how much he likes to pretend he's full of folksy Bavarian wisdom just because he's friends with a cow, or whatever. That wasn't a date, and if it was, Nate had taken one look at André dragging along his only friend for moral support and poisoning himself with a yam and decided that hockey was more important, because it was.

Damn though, if Nathan MacKinnon isn't good at hockey.

If André thought he was fast in practice, there's nothing quite like watching him in a game, dekeing around dmen rusty from the summer and slow on their skates. 

André can't quite keep up himself, the altitude taking its toll on him over the course of the game. One of the Flames absolutely slewfoots him and he slides up against the boards, kicking up a spray of ice as he goes. 

The refs don't catch it, no matter how much André glares at them. When he gets back to the bench, Nate is scrutinizing the non-call on one of the iPads, brow furrowed.

"They should've called that." Nate says, and André feels vindicated, until Nate turns an icy glare on him. "You're too slow. You should've dodged that." André feels less vindicated, and more the opposite of that. Dicated. 

"You're right, I should've used my Spider-man senses to jump out of the way." He grumbles, swiping at his water bottle with a certain amount of hostility.

"Spidey sense." Nate corrects him, and André suppresses the urge to upend his water bottle over his head.

"Nerd." André mutters, and Nate squirts him in the shoulder with his own water bottle. "What the fuck?" He hisses, and Nate squirts him again.

"Start shooting more." Nate tells him, glaring as he nails a spritz of water on André's curls. 

André tousles his hair sending dew drops of water back towards Nate. André watches as Nate slips his glove half-off, wiping the water off his chin with the back of his hand, and brings it lightly up to his mouth to lick it off, tongue darting over the span of tanned skin.

André's eyes widen, Nate refusing to break eye contact for the entire motion, until Bedsy calls Nate out for a shift. 

"Shoot your shot, Burakovsky." Nate calls back over his shoulder to him, before exploding down the ice to slam a Flame into a wall. 

André seethes on the bench for a while, fists balled up at his sides as he watches Nate make pass after pass to Mikko like Mikko had been the one on his line all through training camp and preseason. Belley gives him a sympathetic shoulder bump that almost resolves itself into a half-noogie before André's shift is called.

André races after the puck, slipping past a Flame to dish a pass back to Sammy at the blue line. Sammy lets it fly, and it bounces in off Donskoi's side, and when they call the first goal to Donny and an assist for André, he tries not to look too smug at Nate on the bench. 

"That wasn't a shot." Nate says, it's only Belley's hand on André's shoulder that keeps him on the bench.

By the end of the game, Mikko had two goals and Nate had an assist of his own for the trouble, along with seven shots to André's two.

Nate doesn't look smug or smarmy at him afterwards, just thoughtful and appraising, and that may be worse.

"Good game." He says, before he goes, and there's something in the sincerity that stings. 

"There something up with you two?" Belley asks, in perfect Swedish, leaning over from his stall. He's still sweaty from staying out for so long giving extra handshakes--even though André isn't entirely sure that's his job here.

"He's just a dick," André tells him, crossly, shooting a glare at the line of Nate's back as he retreats to the showers. He shakes his head. "Won't leave me alone."

"Could be worse, you know?" Belley shrugs, flashing him a careful smile. "It sucks, having to actually be alone. Good to have someone to worry about you, sometimes." He smiles again, brighter this time, and pushes off towards the showers himself.

It occurs to him, a little while later, that he'd forgotten that it was Belley's first year here too.

//

Later that night, André stumbles into his dark, empty house, and trips over the stack of boxes next to the door. One of the boxes clatters off with a sad, muffled thump, and he falls over himself into an ungraceful heap on the floor, fingers pressed against the bracing cold of the hardwood and--

He can't get himself up. 

He's not hurt, he knows that. It was a nothing fall, and the muscles in his shoulders are coiled in a way that is a feather's edge from pushing himself back up. His breath is hot, condensing over the wood and pooling back over his face, his breathing the only sound in the house, which suddenly seems cavernous. The red blinking light from the TV is the only thing at eye level, and why would it be except--the box for the stand it would go on is sitting against the wall next to it. He'd plugged it in, and left it on the floor, and that was...was that fine? That was fine, wasn't it? It worked for André. 

He'd had a good game. He had a point in his first ever game on a team that wasn't the Caps, on a team that actually wanted to take that chance. He wasn't wasting anyo--

André presses his lips together, and takes a deep breath through his nose. He holds the breath in his lungs, one, two, three, four, five, six seconds, before pursing his lips just a little, to let the air out slowly, just like he was taught. He repeats the motion, over and over, squaring his breath in his chest.

André's phone buzzes from where it had slipped out of his pocket at his side. He ignores it, and it buzzes again, and again. André fumbles for it, the bright light stinging his eyes. 

Nate has strung together a bunch of clips from the game, all highlights of André. Only one of them, the assist, was official. The rest were shot attempts he'd taken, the penalty and the missed call, things André had done that he'd barely even registered, ripped directly from the game footage.

Nate: juiceeeeee

Nate: it was a nice pass man

Nate: but ive got some notes 📝

Nate: your stickwork is good but your boardwork is sloppy

Nate: and youre still too soft w your shots

André stares at the texts, blinking twice, and pushes himself up into a sitting position so he can text better.

André: is this goin 2 b every game 🙄🙄

Nate replies immediately.

Nate: until im satisfied

André: r u ever satisfied

Nate: i will never be satisfied 

Nate sends another video, this time of his own zone entry, halted by a Flame in his way.

Nate: thoughts?

André: u shud have used ur spiderman sense

Nate: 😠😠😠

Nate keeps texting him, longer than he should considering he'll be picking André up in the morning. It's as annoying as having him around in person--and maybe more so considering Nate can't punctuate his points with Spongebob reaction gifs in person--but it's a nice enough distraction for André to pick himself up and pile himself into bed.

//

Nate's wearing sunglasses in the car when he comes to pick him up. They cover half his face, and would be fashionable if he didn't look so much like a douchebag.

"You look like a douchebag," André tells him as cheerily as he can this early in the morning, which ends up with a voice a little husky with sleep. Nate grimaces, and flips him off slowly.

"Where's my coffee?" André asks. Nate gestures towards the occupied cupholder, and André grabs at it greedily.

It's oatmilk again, which André has started to get used to, and a hint of hazlenut, this time. It's good.

"You know I have an actual coffee order," André observes, taking a plaintive sip.

"Are you going to tell me what it is?" Nate asks, leaning over the steering wheel. 

"It's funnier to see you trying." André says honestly. He taps a nervous beat onto the armrest with two fingers. Nate rolls his eyes, but André knows him well enough now to know he won't stop until he figures it out.

Nate stops at an intersection where the streetlight is broken, the light blinking an unceasing red. André's grip tightens against the armrest, and a shiver runs over the back of his neck. 

Nate glances over at him, letting his sunglasses slide down the bridge of his nose. "You all right, dude?" He's going for careful, a perfectly measured level of gentle that André hasn't quite heard from him before.

"I didn't sleep well last night," André admits.

Nate's eyes widen. "That wasn't my fault, was it? I didn't keep you up or--"

André stops him with a hand in the air. "No, you--" His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, pushing at his throat. "You actually managed to help."

André should have called Dr. Juno, he knows. But it's early, and they're still just learning each other, and he'd woken up fine. He's fine. Nate's brow is furrowed at him, worried.

"Do you ever get, like, anxious, after games and stuff?" André asks in spite of himself, and Nate blinks at him. It's a stupid question, André has seen Nate play, seen his endless drive and confidence and how he projects that on everyone else. 

"No, I go to therapy every week because I'm a completely well-adjusted person, André." Nate deadpans.

"Oh." André says, remembering now how he'd seen him coming out of Dr. Juno's. "Oh, yeah." 

"After games, before games, in the room, on the bench." Nate shrugs, a little too sardonic to be anything but serious. "Everywhere but on the ice. Like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like I'll wake up and it'll all be gone."

"How do you deal with it?" André asks. He knows the feeling, has known it since he's had to watch his friends leave, knew it when his agent asked him about his contract for the first time and he realized that the only way for him was out.

"Lately I've started holding on to everything I've got, so no one can take it from me." Nate's eyes glint over his sunglasses. André exhales between his lips. Something about Nate starts to make sense. His intensity, his drive, his annoying relentlessness about everything.

"Does it work?" 

"I'll let you know." Nate says, shaking his head.

They drive in silence for a little while longer, until Nate pulls up to the Family Sports Center. It's not awkward, or charged this time. There's something companionable about it, sitting next to someone who knows exactly what you're thinking about. André hasn't felt like that for a while.

As they're getting out, André clears his throat. "You're not as much of a dick as you seem, sometimes," he admits. 

Nate blinks at him, color rising to his face. "Uh, thanks?"

//

They win the next game, against Minnesota, and André comes out of it with another two shots and a penalty for his trouble. Nate is a little less on his jock about it, but that's probably because they have a weird four day break coming up before their next game and he's planning on spiriting André away to practice edging or whatever. 

Before that happens though, André is entirely determined to get his dick so wet he could star in the sequel to Shape of Water.

"Do you really have to say it like that?" Grubi grimaces, sipping some of the foam off of his fancy craft pilsner. "Do you really have to say words like that in front of me?"

They're at drinks to properly celebrate Mikko signing his contract and the beginning of the season all at once, EJ parading them into the bar and telling them all to get whatever they wanted on Mikko's tab. Mikko, to his credit, immediately tried to get a keg before Gabe stopped him, but managed to buy the whole team a round anyway.

"I haven't hooked up since I got here. It's time." André says, sweeping his arm in the air to motion towards the rest of the bar. "It's the perfect time, before everyone knows me."

Grubi snorts. "Do you still sleep on a mattress on the floor? Are you planning on bringing someone back to that?"

"Sorry we all can't make love on a canopy bed made of flower petals, princess." André chirps back.

"That sounds nice." Sammy says dreamily, sidling into the side of the booth across from them, EJ in tow. "Erik, get me flower petals." He commands, pointing the umbrella of his drink at EJ.

"I'll eat every single one of them in front of you, babe." EJ promises dutifully, slinging an arm around Sammy to pull him almost into his lap. 

"Are you trying to make love to Grubi, Burky?" Sammy asks, ignoring the gross weird thing EJ just said. André's not sure how long they've been together, but it seems like it's been a while.

"God, no." André scoffs, scrunching his nose in disgust. Grubi clicks his tongue, clearly offended.

"Nate said you were fucking. Are you not?" EJ interjects, grin gleeful and terrifying.

"God, no." Grubi says this time. "I have standards." He adds. André shoves him in the shoulder, processing what EJ just said. 

"What do you mean Nate said--" André starts. Is that what he thought? Is that why--Jesus, what kind of slut did he think André was?

"Hey Dogg!" EJ clambers over Sammy to lean over the top of the booth and yell across the bar over to where Naz is showing Nate and Mikko a bar trick with some shot glasses that Mikko looks absolutely delighted by. "Your gossip was wrong!" He hollers, ignoring Sammy as he tries to get EJ's elbow out of his face.

André cranes over to see Nate stare at EJ, mouth something that they can't quite catch over the din, but is probably some variation on 'What the fuck do you want, you fucking mutant?'

"Your gossip was wrong, Karen! No one's banging the goalie!" EJ yells again, to Grubi's righteous indignation, just as Sammy succeeds in hooking his arm around EJ's shoulder and pulling the bigger dman down, sprawling backwards over the table. Grubi snatches his drink away with goalie precision, but André's beer isn't so lucky, spilling down the front of his shirt.

"Sorry, mon chum's a big idiot." Sammy says, at the same time as EJ says "I don't apologize for anything." 

André sighs, tousling the beer out of his curls dramatically, and stomps off towards the bathroom. 

Behind him, he hears Grubi say, "Plenty of people would like to bang me, fuck you very much." 

He's halfway through dabbing paper towels on his shirt in the dingy bar bathroom that can't even afford to keep a mirror up over the sinks when someone comes in. André catches a flash of straw blond hair and severely broad shoulders, and that could be like half the team, but it turns out to just be a normal, fuck-off hot guy that doesn't work with him. 

The man has deep green eyes and enough scruff to look effortless in a way that probably took a lot of effort. He's shorter than André, as most people are, but he has a swagger that makes André feel like that doesn't really matter.

"Get a little wet and wild?" The man says, voice deep and gravelly in a way that scrapes over the skin of André's neck when he speaks. 

André leans back against the sink, smiling as invitingly as he can. "What's the phrase? I go hard and get put away wet." 

The man licks his lips, eyes devouring every inch of André, who preens under the attention. "I think it's ridden hard, actually."

"Are you volunteering?" André asks, and the man swallows.

"I might be. I'm Ford." He says, and André is about to take him up on the offer when the bathroom door swings open again.

Nate blusters in, clutching a few little white towels he almost definitely stole from the bar. "Grubi told me what EJ did. He's such a dick, I swear, not even coming to help." He throws a towel towards André, who catches it reflexively. "You're soaking wet." Nate clucks, eyes trained on André's chest. "I have a sweater in the car you can use, c'mon." 

When André stays rooted to the spot, Nate finally takes a breath, and Ford takes his opportunity to clear his throat. "If I'm getting in the middle of something here--" Ford starts, but André stops him. 

"It's fine," André says flippantly. "It's just my...co-worker." He edges around the word teammate, even though Ford doesn't seem to recognize either of them. He doesn't want to say friend either, not with how weird Nate has been, and especially not while he's barging in while André's half-hard and ready to pick up some easy blond boy in a seedy bar in Colorado.

"Who's this?" Nate asks, weird, harsh edge to his voice. He's gripping the towel he didn't throw at André tightly in his hands very suddenly. 

"This is Ford." André says calmly, dragging his own towel over his neck. "He's taking me home with him tonight." 

"Am I?" Ford says. André levels a look at him, and brings a thumb up to his collarbone to swipe up a single drop of beer and lick it off. "I am." Ford agrees. 

"You can't, Grubi, and--" Nate starts, turning red up to his ears. He puts a hand on André's shoulder. "We have practice tomorrow." He hisses, under his breath. 

"I'll be ready to go tomorrow." André says, slipping smoothly out of Nate's grasp. "And I'm ready to go now." He says to Ford, who perks up.

"You can see literally everything under those wet clothes, dude." Nate gets out, exasperated.

"Well, he likes it." André says, pointing a thumb towards Ford. "Down Dogg. I'll see you tomorrow." André winks at him, and leads Ford out of the bathroom, leaving Nate to fume.

"I'm not like, cucking anyone, am I?" Ford asks, as he's opening his car door for André. 

André rolls his eyes. "Don't mind him. I'm learning it's a lot easier that way." André says, and leans down to kiss him, driving any thought of Nathan MacKinnon from both of their heads. 

//

André wakes up to the sun hitting him in the face and come drying on his chest, wrapped up in a stranger's ugly bedspread. He feels a little gross, and still smells a little like beer. 

Ford comes out of the shower, tie around his neck, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. He looks two steps away from some high rise office in Denver where he does accounting or whatever the fuck, immensely more respectable than the grungy hockey player pulling on his badly dried boxers from where they ended up in a limp pile by Ford's bedside table. 

"Morning." Ford says, giving him a smile too charming for André's pounding headache. André's phone is dead, and he doesn't bother asking as he grabs the charger coming out of Ford's drawer to plug it in. "Last night was really fun--"

"What time is it?" André asks impatiently, staring as his phone attempts to gather its own shit in-between fishing his shirt--simultaneously stiff and wrinkled--out from under the bed. 

"Like, 8? I'm about to go to work, but did you want--"

André's eyes widen and he curses, skipping some of the buttons on his shirt and scrambling for his pants. "Fuck, he's gonna kill me." André mutters, imagining the gasket Nate is blowing right now on top of how he's probably pissed from last night. Sure enough, his phone turns on, and the lockscreen is flooded with missed calls and texts from Nate. 

Nate: your coffees getting cold

Nate: 😕😕😕

Nate: you said youd be ready liar 🙄🙄

Nate: cmonn bro i even gave you extra time

Nate: did you not get home last night

Nate: call me

Nate: i swear to god u better not be dead 😠😠

Nate: he wasnt even that hot

Nate: what kind of name is ford anyway 

Nate: what is he a car

Nate: please call me

André scrolls to the most recent call--ten minutes ago--and calls back, breathless. Nate picks up halfway through the first ring. 

"Hey," André says, more out of reflex than anything. 

"Hey?" Nate echoes back mockingly. "Where the fuck are you?" He snaps, more annoyed than André's ever heard him, and he's gotten a lot of that over the last few weeks. Then, his voice softens and lowers. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," André tells him, voice still hoarse from last night. "I'm still at the guy's house, I just woke up, he hasn't murdered me." He glances towards Ford, who is sullenly tying his tie. "You're not a murderer, are you?" Ford shakes his head. "He's not a murderer."

"I'm picking you up." Nate declares. "Send me your location." He says, and then he hangs up.

André takes a second to swipe over and send his location to Nate, and takes a deep breath, leaning back against Ford's bed.

"Was that your 'co-worker?'" Ford asks, the scare quotes audible in the way he hits the last word. He sounds exhaustingly wistful for a guy who was all things considered a pretty mediocre lay, but André still has to wait in his apartment, so he bites his tongue on that as he fishes around for his shoes.

"He's coming to get me." André explains. He finds his socks crammed into his shoes, but putting them on is more work than he can handle right now, so André just holds his shoes in his lap.

"This was never going to be a thing, huh?" 

"Probably not." André admits, catching up on the rest of his texts, which are mostly memes from the groupchat and some increasingly drunken mocking from Grubi.

"Well, we had a good night, at least." Ford says. "Listen, if you ever--"

"Sure," André says curtly, as the text comes in from Nate that he's pulling into the lot, a lot quicker than André would've expected from the rink. "See you later, Ferb."

"Actually it's--"

André pushes himself off the bed and gives him a quick salute as he swings off the doorway down the hallway towards Nate. 

He piles into the now-familiar passenger seat of Nate's car, and Nate hands him a coffee cup. 

André takes a sip, and it's warm, and tastes distinctly of coconut milk, vanilla, and more expresso than usual. "This is…" André takes another, deeper sip, letting the heady flavor wash over him. "Actually my order."

"I figured I'd ask around." Nate says with a shrug.

"Oh well, thanks." André says, feeling the caffeine start to perk him up. "I thought you said it was getting cold."

"It was." Nate tells him, without elaborating further.

André takes a second to look at Nate, in one of his Avs shirts and shorts, looking calm and clean in a way he usually wasn't after the extra hour or so of practice he took before everyone else. 

"Have you not gone to skate yet?" André asks. Nate tilts his head at him.

"I was waiting for you." He says, matter of factly, like it's a given that Nate would delay his entire day by hours just for him.

"You look like shit." Nate continues, in the same tone, before André has a chance to say anything. He leans over to the backseat to grab his duffel and pushes it towards André. "I have some extra clothes in here."

He doesn't seem like he wants to argue, and André's not feeling it right now either, so he roots through the duffel to find Nate's hoodie and an extra pair of the grey shorts. Nate's car is extra roomy, but André still has some trouble stretching out enough to slide his pants back off.

"Are you changing in here?" Nate asks sharply, looking like he's trying to avert his gaze from where André is kicking his underwear off. "You could go in the back."

André rolls his eyes. "We're already late, and it's nothing you haven't seen before." He shimmies the shorts on, and the 29 emblazoned on the thigh rides up a little high. 

"Don't play two-touch in those, bro." Nate grumbles, his voice a little weird and high and André sticks his tongue out at him as he unbuttons his shirt, before shrugging his shirt off his shoulders completely. 

Nate stumbles from where he's scrambling to turn the car back on.

The hoodie is a little short, and his abs flash every time he stretches, so André thinks he looks a little ridiculous, and Nate obviously agrees from the way he's ducking his head trying not to laugh, but the 29 on the chest fits snugly over his heart, and he pats it twice.

Nate finally gets them on the road, and André manages to get his phone plugged into the car charger. He marks some of Nate's calls as seen before he glances at him. 

"Thanks for picking me up. I'm usually better about getting out of there but, well, it's been a while." André admits. 

Nate looks a little pensive. "So you and Grubi?" He asks, a little hesitant.

André scrunches his nose. "I wouldn't like, say no. But he probably would." Grubi had some ideas about friendship and casual sex or whatever, which was all well and good for him.

Nate stays quiet for a few seconds, thinking. "Do you hook up a lot then?"

André smile at him. "Not nearly as much as I'd want." He says honestly. Nate colors a little at the ears. "You're looking like Cale over here," he jokes. "Don't be so repressed."

"I'm not repressed." Nate barks out, so quickly it almost stings. He catches André's eye, and lowers his voice to something deep and heavy that goes straight to André's dick. "I'll show you repressed."

"I'll believe it when I see it, man." André waves off, with a nervous laugh, just as they pull into the parking lot. 

When they get there, everyone's already getting ready, which isn't quite what André is used to after weeks and weeks of it just being a combination of the four of them.

JT throws a tape ball at him from his stall, and looks him over, eyes trained on the numbers. "What, Nate's got you dressing like him now?" He glances over at Josty next to him, crossing his arms. "Do not get any ideas." 

"I wouldn't!" Josty protests. "I have my own style." He says proudly.

JT rolls his eyes and leans over to flick Josty on the forehead. "Never mind, you've never had an idea in your life." He says, and Josty springs up to put him in a headlock.

André leaves them to their rituals and heads to his own stall, where Belley smiles warmly at him. 

"Good to see you made it, Burky." Belley crows, looking him over. "You look like you had a good night." 

André cranes over to look at Nate, racing to put his pads on, and sighs. "I'll be in for it this morning, though."

Belley glances between the two of them and wolf whistles. "I'm sure you will."

//

They stay later than they usually do, Nate insisting on making up for lost time, and André figures it's the least he can do. They practice shots until Grubi and Frankie get sick of it and Grubi drags his fellow goalie off to get lunch, and then they make Cale get in the goal for even longer until even he and Josty have to rest for the day. Eventually, it's just him and Nate, with even most of the staff gone for the day, leaving them alone and practicing defending the empty net from each other's breakaways.

Nate is solid in front of him, faster even after hours of work. Every time André tries to deke away from him, Nate's stick is in the way to counter him, and even when André manages it Nate speeds up to catch him. 

They're in Nate's zone just past the blueline. André has the puck on his stick, aching for a goal. Nate is ahead of him, skating backwards to defend him with practiced precision. He flags slightly on his right side, just a little, barely imperceptible to anyone who hasn't watched Nathan MacKinnon state one-on-one for weeks, and André sees his opening. 

He flips the puck onto the blade of his stick and flicks his wrist, sending the puck over Nate's stick and to his side. He sidesteps Nate, and hipchecks him just hard enough to knock him off balance, and recollects the puck. Nate collects himself and swivels on a dime, and André knows he has seconds before Nate speeds up and catches him. He counts them, in-between his breaths, sets a clear eye on the goal in front of him, and shoots.

It hits the inside of the post, and André almost curses until it bounces all the way to the other post, and ricochets into the back of the net with a satisfying thunk. 

André hollers, pumping his fist wildly, and Nate barrels into him, scooping him up with one arm and pushing him up against the glass, forehead pressed against his like this was a real goal and not just a play in practice, just the two of them. André lets Nate push him and pushes back at the same time, almost nuzzling at the touch.

"What a fucking move, Dré." Nate says, whisper hoarse, close enough for André to feel his breath against his jaw. André's senses start to settle, enough for him to notice Nate's hand around the back of his neck, pulling André closer, the other hand squeezing softly around his hip. If André wanted, he could lean his chin just so, and kiss him. If he wanted.

"Nate?" He says instead, his voice thick with a moment he didn't even realize he was in until it was happening. 

"It'd be better for your game," Nate starts, slowly, as if he had planned out all the words one by one. "If we started having sex."

André blinks. "Uh, say that again?"

"We should be having sex." Nate says, explaining nothing.

"You want to fuck me?" André asks, feeling a little lightheaded. He slips out of Nate's grasp, pressing his fingers backwards against the glass. "For the sake of my game."

Nate nods, on both counts.

"Can you, uh, explain what you're thinking here?"

"You're better when you hook-up, but hooking up with strangers is a lot of trouble. You're not hooking up with anyone else on the team, and we already spend a lot of time together, so. It's more convenient, for it to be me." Nate shrugs, and it sounds simultaneously like he's put a lot of thought into this and not enough all at once. 

"Convenient." André echoes. 

"Easy. Like, convenience stores, you don't have to go very f--"

"I know what convenient means, Nathan!" André snaps. He unbuckles his chinstrap and pulls off his helmet, just so he can run his hands through his hair.

Nate pauses, finally, like he's realizing now he didn't come up with the perfect plan to get in André's pants.

"Did you, uh, are you not into me, or?" Nate stutters.

André rolls his eyes. "Obviously I'm into you, you're huge and hot, shut up." He's furious now, he realizes. "Do you really think I'm that much of a slut or I'm so desperate that I need you to donate your dick to me or--"

"No, André, fuck, I--" Nate says, eyes wide, moving in closer to him. He sucks in a stabilizing breath through his teeth.

André stares at Nate, and he realizes. For the first time since he’s met him, Nate looks unsure. “All right, MacKinnon.” André says. "Shoot your shot." He nods, drops his helmet to the ice to take a hold of Nate's jersey, and leans down to kiss him.

Nate takes a few seconds to realize what's happening, but once he does he leans into the kiss eagerly. His hand comes up between them to get the strap of his helmet off. He pushes André back up against the glass bracketing André in with his shoulders. The boards shake under his strength, the glass rolling behind André.

Nate kisses like he does anything, relentless and exacting, drawing out every breath and sound André makes beneath him. Nate's huge hand slides under André's jersey to rub over his abs, thumb rubbing circles over his waistband.

"We should probably get off the ice." André reminds him, kissing up Nate's jaw to nip under his ear.

Nate presses their foreheads together again, settling himself down. "Do you wanna do it in the locker room?” He asks, sounding like he's only half-joking.

"Next time." André promises, running a thumb over Nate's jaw. "Take me home first." 

"Yours or mine?" Nate breathes out. 

There's a voice in André's head that sounds suspiciously like Grubi, reminding him that he still doesn't have a bedframe. Nate has already seen the mess that is André's place, and apparently doesn't give a shit, but André rests a hand to squeeze over Nate's bicep, and he recognizes that he might appreciate the stability. 

"Yours." André tells him, and Nate nods. He scoops up both their helmets in one arm, and pushes André off the boards with the other, guiding him impatiently towards the gate.

"Move." Nate whines, and André tries to stifle his laughter. 

"I thought you said we were convenient," André teases. Nate tugs André along by his sleeve across the ice, groaning every time André strays in the wrong direction. 

"Yes, I'm so convenienced right now!" Nate growls, hooking his hand around Andre’s wrist to run his thumb over the pulse point. "Let's fucking go!" And André can't help himself from laughing now.

//

Putting on Nate's clothes in front of him hits different for André in the locker room for the second time today. André recognizes now, the way Nate stares at him across the empty room, the look on his face as he sees that 29 stretch over André's thigh. He's hungry for André in a way that André didn't quite let himself notice before, and he basks in the attention.

It doesn’t take long to get to Nate’s loft, even though every minute feels like a century to André’s dick. André pounces on him as soon as he gets the door open and kicks off his shoes, pushing him up against the nearest surface, which turns out to be the table where Nate keeps his keys, sending various knick-knacks and a picture of Nate’s parents clattering to the floor. It’d be better for them not to see this anyway, maybe, André thinks, as he finally shoves a hand down Nate’s pants. 

Nate sucks in a breath as André slips past his waistband and wraps his grip around Nate’s huge, hardening cock. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re eager.” Nate breathes out, as André slides down to his knees in front of him. Nate is warm and heavy as he thickens at André's touch. 

André looks up at him through his eyelashes, and smirks. "You volunteered for this, MacKinnon. For hockey." 

"Yeah," Nate says, voice strained. "For hockey." 

"So just relax, and think of hockey." André teases, licks his lips and takes as much of Nate's cock in his mouth as he can in one go. 

Nate chokes, and has to scramble not to buckle underneath him.The table behind him shakes even more as he digs his fingernails backwards into the wood. The muscles in his thighs flex as he tries to stabilize himself, and André rests a hand over one thigh to get Nate further down his throat.

André starts to lose himself in it, the satisfying groans and curses as he undoes Nathan MacKinnon with his mouth. Nate's hand cups the back of his neck and rakes gently through his curls, trying to guide him deeper. André feels his lips wrap around the base of Nate's thick cock, the thatch of Nate's pubes resting against his chin. 

André luxuriates in the heady feeling of it, drunk off the fullness for a few seconds, lazily lathering the underside of Nate's cock with his tongue. Nate's arm rockets backwards to brace himself on the table, and it starts to buckle under his strength. 

"Dré, André, fuck, babe, I'm going to come," Nate babbles. André braces himself against Nate, feeling his muscles tense underneath him as Nate fills his mouth with come. André tries to swallow it all, but there's a lot more than he thought there would be, and he has to draw off of Nate, letting the last few streaks splatter over André's face and in his curls, dragging the head over André's jaw to leave a sticky, pearly sheen. 

André runs his hand over his face and jaw, trying to collect as much as he can to lick off his fingers as Nate tries to catch his breath. Nate stares at him, eyes shining, before he yanks him up by the collar--the seams of Nate's shirt already tight around André's shoulders give way, fabric ripping loudly as Nate does--to pull him into a wet, sloppy kiss.

He's more than a little gross, but Nate doesn't seem to care, licking into his mouth with reckless abandon. Under their combined weight, the table finally buckles, one of the legs snapping and giving way. 

Nate yelps, and André wraps his arms tightly around him to catch him. They teeter sideways and onto the floor, not too hard but hard enough to snap them out of their reverie.

Nate is solid and heavy on top of him, as they meet eye to eye, wrapped together and heartbeats heaving. The table is a splintered mess next to them, its contents scattered all over the floor. André's shirt is in tatters, barely hanging to his shoulders, and parts of his face are getting tacky with drying come. Nate laughs, and André laughs with him, loud and incredulous. 

"I can't believe we couldn't make it past my front door without breaking anything." Nate notes, and André smiles at him. "And we haven't even fucked yet."

André's eyes widen. Part of him wondered whether Nate would be happy with a property destroying blowjob and move on from there. "You still wanna?" He asks. Nate shifts their legs, slotting his thigh to rub up against André's cock, still in shorts.

"We have two days before they want us for anything." Nate reminds him, the supple skin of his thigh hot from where it touches the places where Nate's shorts ride up on André. "We should make the most of it."

"I don't have anywhere else to be." André blurts out. Nate smiles at him, rolling his hips one last time against him.

"We should probably get off the floor." Nate admits, pushing himself up reluctantly. 

"Okay," André says. "Couch, or shower, or kitchen countertop, or--"

"I was thinking bed, babe." Nate tells him. "All those other places can wait for next time." André flushes, a little.

"Next time?"

"Well, it's part of our routine now." Nate says, matter of factly. 

"Guess it is, huh?" André shakes his head, and leans over to kiss him again, just because he can.

Nate leads André to the bedroom and strips off his shirt and André's shorts, throwing them in a pile with the shirt he ruined. He pushes André to the bed and crawls in-between his legs, one hand on each thigh.

"You gonna blow me?" André asks. Nate chuckles, the vibration of it thrumming over André's skin. 

"I was thinking I'd eat you out, actually." Nate says. He rests his thumbs on the soft delicate skin between André’s thighs and his hole, and smiles up at him. He taps his thumbs twice, rhythmically. "I could probably make you come that way."

André raises an eyebrow. "Is that so?" He arches his hips up in a challenge. "Prove it then, MacKinnon." 

Nate wastes no time, and starts with a trail of light nips down André's thigh to his hole. He starts slow at first, easing him into it with wet kisses along his rim, and just when André gets used to it he speeds up, plunging his tongue in with expert grace. André squirms under the whorls and flourishes, the unrelenting heat of Nate's tongue hollowing him out.

Nate is as good at this as he is at hockey, and there's something about that that would be infuriating if André wasn't a hair's breadth from absolutely falling apart. His fingers claw against the bedspread as he bucks against Nate, held steady by Nate's hands digging into his thighs, fingers holding open André's hole for his tongue no matter how much André begs for more.

André feels lost in it, feels like Nate eats him out for hours, just mining him out and using him up. Finally, Nate catches his eye, dragging his tongue up the length of André's wet, open hole to look at him. He takes his thumb to press the barest tip of it inside and André can't help himself. He yelps, and comes all over himself, shooting long ropes of come over his abs and chest.

Nate hoists himself up on his palms to lick a long stripe over André's sensitive cock, and then over each ab. He laps the come off his chest and pools it over one of André's nipples experimentally, cleaning André with his mouth until he finally manages to kiss him. 

André mumbles something against his mouth, so drunk with it he can barely know what it is, and Nate laughs, pressing their foreheads together. 

"English, babe." He reminds him, voice hoarse and blown out. 

"Was that not English?" André asks. Nate wraps an arm around him to hold him closer. 

"Baby, you haven't been speaking English for a while." Nate tells him, sounding impossibly fond. 

André leans against him and smiles. "If it's always going to be like that, you're going to have to learn Swedish." He teases.

"Gabe's taught me a little." Nate shrugs. "Just not...that."

André thinks about it, for a second, and his cock starts to stir again. "That'd be hot. You should fuck me now." 

Nate snorts and runs a hand through André's hair. "Hang on, I'm gonna need a drink." He says, drawing away. 

André pouts and bounces petulantly on the bed. "You spent all that time opening me up!" He whines, and Nate ignores him.

"I'll be right back, babe, hold your horses." Nate tells him, heading out the bedroom door.

"I don't have any horses, I'm not Johnson!" André calls out behind him, and André only kind of stares at his ass and the insane muscles in his back out of principle.

André grumbles and looks around the room. There, on the bedside table already, is a full pump bottle of lube and a roll of condoms--Nate really must have been planning this. André squirts some of the lube in his palm, and starts to lazily finger himself, hole still wet and pliable from Nate's ministrations. 

Nate stops in the doorway when he gets back, holding two bottles of coconut water. "You're insatiable." He chuckles, taking a long sip from his drink. 

"Well, make me satiable." André growls.

Nate sets down one of the drinks on the bedside table and sits down next to him. He gently grabs André's wrist from where he's two fingers deep inside himself, and wraps his hand around the other coconut water.

"Just drink." 

André scowls, but he drinks. The coconut water is pleasantly cool against his throat--he hadn't realized how hoarse he was from deepthroating Nate earlier. As he drinks, Nate takes another swig of his own and pushes it away, and without another word, pumps some lube over his fingers with one hand and rips open a condom packet with his teeth using the other. 

André leans back against the bed as Nate replaces André's fingers with his own, bigger and more purposeful as they open him up the rest of the way. Nate slicks the condom on, and André rushes to finish his drink, spilling a little as he sets it down next to Nate's. 

"You ready?" Nate asks, and André rolls his eyes.

"I've been ready." André reminds him, as Nate arches his fingers up against his prostate, and he chokes on his words. "Fuck me, Nathan!" He barks out, and Nate flips over to bracket André with his thighs, pushing him up against the headboard as he lines the head of his cock up against André's hole.

"You're. so. impatient." Nate grunts out as he starts to push into André, pushing him back against the headboard as he does. "You'd think you'd shoot more that way." 

"I'll show you how I fucking shoot!" André snarls and scrambles his arms around Nate's back for purchase to pull him in the rest of the way. André gasps as Nate's hips flush to his, the fullness of Nate's very well sizable cock finally, finally seated completely inside of him. 

He grabs onto Nate's shoulders for dear life and starts to ride him, slowly, shallow thrusts of his hips that start to resolve faster and faster. Nate starts to move with him, bucking against him to meet him as André slams himself over Nate's cock again and again.

Nate groans against him, wrapping an arm around his waist to hold him steady, lifting him up higher. He latches his mouth over André's neck, finding a suitable pale expanse of skin over his shoulder to bite down on, hard enough to leave a mark. 

André finds himself pushed back against the headboard as Nate fucks into him, the wood slamming into the drywall behind them as Nate finds his prostate again and nails him to the wall by it. 

"I'm gonna--" Nate gasps out, and André bucks his hips down so Nate's fully inside him when he comes. André curses the condom at this moment, at the idea that this is the first time Nate's finishing inside of him and he won't be able to feel his come filling him up, walk around with it dripping out of him. They'll have plenty of time, André figures. He refuses to wake up at 5am ever again if there isn't the promise of Nate fucking him attached.

He doesn't have much more time to think about that before Nate's hand is wrapping around his cock, stroking him hard and tight and fast until André is coming for the second time today in Nate's grip.

"Better than Ford, huh?" Nate says, chest heaving, apropos of nothing. 

André blinks at him, swiping at the come cooling on his stomach. "Yeah, you're like a Ferrari." He says, and Nate looks pleased. Nate ties off the condom and throws it in the little wastebin next to his bedside table, and settles back next to André to kiss him. 

André feels wrung out and boneless, and he has absolutely no desire to go back to his empty house in Cherry Creek right now, so he uses Nate's shower while Nate makes him dinner. The shorts Nate lent him are the only thing that survived Nate, and they smell like sex anyway, so André roots around in Nate's wardrobe to find an old moth-worn Mooseheads shirt and some sweatpants that fit him. 

Nate is at the stove when he walks in, tv blaring in the other room. André sidles up next to him and wraps an arm around his waist, unable to resist pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder. 

"What're you making?" André murmurs against his skin. Nate glances at him, takes in his outfit, and smiles. 

"Just some sweet potatoes and pasta." Nate says. André chuckles, looks like Grubi was telling the truth after all. "I threw in a yam, for you. Cooked this time."

André smacks him on the shoulder, not hard, and Nate giggles goofily at him, waving him off towards the tv to stop distracting him. The NHL Network is on, showing highlights from last night's games. André rolls his eyes.

"We're not watching hockey right now," André groans, searching around for the remote. Nate looks over at him questioningly. "It's already our whole lives, we're not living in a bubble."

He finds the remote, finally, and spotting Nate's PS4, messes around with a couple rounds of Fifa until all of Nate's messages telling him to play Fortnite get to be too much, which is when Nate shows up balancing two plates of food. 

"Oh, now that we fuck I have to eat on the couch?" André teases, as Nate sets the food down on the coffee table. Nate sputters a little and gestures towards the dining table, but André stops him with a swift kiss to the side of his mouth. "It's fine. Thanks for cooking."

They sit crosslegged on each side of the couch, facing each other and eating. The chickpea pasta isn't actually bad, and more flavorful than André thought it would be.

"I should cook for you sometime." André muses, playing with the last noodle on his fork.

"Can you cook?" Nate swallows. "You don't seem like the type."

"Neither do you." André says, and Nate shrugs. "It's been easier to order food here, but I used to cook a lot more in DC."

"Tyson taught me some things, but he did most of the cooking." Nate admits. "This summer I hired a chef to help me figure the rest out on my own."

Tyson again. André looks at Nate. He doesn't seem so strained, talking about him now. André thinks about it for a second, and realizes that he's had Nate's dick inside of him several ways today, so he might as well ask. "Were you and Tyson…" He pauses. "Did you do what we're doing?"

He's not saying it out of jealousy, he thinks. It's less jealousy and more, curiosity.

Nate coughs, and chokes down a chunk of sweet potato. "No, no, I love Tyson, but--" He shakes his head and looks André in the eye. "He's never needed that much help." 

André flicks the noodle at his face.

Nate blinks and André grabs both plates and sets them down on the floor carelessly as he crawls along the couch and over Nate's lap. He peels the noodle off of Nate's face, throws it over his shoulder, and kisses the stupid, surprised look on Nate's face.

He kisses Nate slowly, over his jaw and down his neck, slotting his thigh up against Nate's bulge to rut against it rhythmically. Nate melts underneath him, arching up against him, his hand snaking down to rub at André's abs and sneak closer and closer to his waistband.

Before he gets there, André fishes the PS4 controller out of the couch cushions and presses it into Nate's hands. 

"Play Fortnite. Your buddies wanna do teams." André says, sliding off of him.

Nate stares at him wide-eyed. "What?" 

"Play." André says again, thumbing towards the tv, still humming with messages.

Nate looks confused, and suspicious, but he adjusts his bulge and sits up, keeping one eye on André as he grabs his headset and sets up a match. 

André watches him placidly, finishing the rest of Nate's food, and lets him get into it while he wanders into Nate's bathroom to find a spare toothbrush, Nate still glancing after him every few seconds. 

When André comes back in, Nate's engrossed in the game, yelling at Nietsy and JT to get off their asses, and André decides that's the moment. 

André slides down to his knees in front of Nate, pulls his shorts down, and takes the head of his cock into his mouth.

"What--" Nate starts, before André puts a finger to his lips to shush him. André laves over Nate's cock, reverently mapping it with his tongue.

"JT I'm taking point watch my si--oh, Jesus fuck." Nate takes one hand off the controller to brace against the arm rest, André's hands against his thighs keeping him from bucking up.

Nate's hand slips from where he's holding the controller and a shot rings out, and André can hear Nietsy yelp from Nate's headphones. André swallows around Nate's cock, and he feels it pulse, and roots himself down to drain every drop this time as Nate comes down his throat.

Nate shudders and groans, ripping his headphones off and throwing them across the couch as an approaching squad guns his idle character down and their teammates in short order. Nate pays it no mind and wrenches André up to kiss him. 

"I don't need the help, Nathan. I'm just taking it." André says smugly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Nate leans in to kiss him again, running a hand through his hair. 

"You're insane." He marvels, kissing André deeper. "Buck fucking wild." 

"My turn." André says cheerfully, grabbing the controller from the couch. "You blow me this time." Nate nods dumbly, and laughs. 

//

When André wakes up the next morning, it's to Nate's tongue in his ass like it's part of a complete breakfast, which for Nate, it might be. André gives him a lazy handjob in the shower, and Nate bends him over the kitchen counter, three fingers deep while he burns the egg white omelettes. 

André has almost had more sex over the course of these three days than he's had his life, including Worlds and excluding the week after he won the Cup, and he's not getting tired of matching Nate blowjob for blowjob.

Still, they've got practice on Wednesday morning, and sessions with Dr. Juno, so André has to leave Nate's house and eat something other than Nate's food and wear something other than Nate's clothes, so it's kind of a bummer. 

Nate fucks him through it in consolation that morning before he drops André off at home, and they're a little later to the rink because of it, but Nate doesn't actually seem to mind. 

Gabe slides up to him during drills with a friendly, but also very solid, shoulder check. "We're having lunch today." Gabe says, in full on captain voice. It's a little hot, but André's having enough sex to control himself about it nowadays.

"Morning to you too, Gabbe." André grumbles, rubbing his shoulder. "Does everyone on this team do this?" 

"It comes with the letter." Gabe deadpans. He glances at Nate, who is practicing one-timers with Josty. "Nate has therapy today, we can go then." He says.

André balks. "How did you--" 

Gabe points at the hickey on André's neck. 

"Can we get sushi?" André asks, resigned. Gabe smiles brightly at him.

//

They go to a sushi place close to Dr. Juno's office, and André orders four rolls for himself off the bat. They talk about innocuous things while they eat, about André's family and Gabe's pregnant wife.

"Is this a shovel talk?" André asks, mouth full of the after lunch mints for the table that he'd taken for himself. "Are you going to threaten me, Gabbe?"

Gabe swipes one of the mints from the bowl and pops one into his mouth. "Nah. You can probably guess what EJ is capable of if you hurt Nate. This is about you."

André swallows. "What about me?"

"When you disappeared for sex reasons earlier this week, Grubi went by your place, and he said--" Gabe looks at André seriously, and André stiffens under his gaze. His skin starts to crawl and his throat sort of tightens. He wonders if he can still be on the team if he flips a table onto his captain and runs. "Why don't you have any furniture, André?"

"I have furniture!" André says defensively, heart racing. "I'm just new, it just--"

"You've been here for more than a month. Grub said he thought you were doing all right, but, that's obviously not the case." Gabe is somehow both gentle and firm, a far cry from the blunt, straightforward captain lectures he's used to.

André slumps in his seat, avoiding the heat of Gabe's gaze. "I don't want to bother, if I end up having to leave." He says quietly.

"Why would you have to leave?" Gabe asks, and he blinks, leaning over the table. "You know we want you, right? The team wants you. You're not going anywhere."

And André knows he's right. He knows he's right. Sakic traded for him because they believe in him, Bednar lets him play with Nate because they believe in him, Nate has spent so much time on him, is with him entirely because he believes in him. André knows in his heart of heart that Gabe is right, but he just can't hear it right now.

"I have to go." André says instead, standing up abruptly. "Thanks for lunch."

"André--" Gabe calls out, but André's already out the door.

//

Nate: hey where are you babe

Nate: you're late for your session

Nate: did gabe hold you up 😠

André calls Dr. Juno's office in the most well adjusted voice he can manage, and asks to reschedule, and when he's done with that, goes back to sitting in the dark, counting how many times the red light on his TV blinks.

There's no reason for him to wallow. He should just get up, open up all those boxes, and make some attempt at making his house look like someone lives in it to show Gabe, and Grubi, and everyone that he wasn't a fucking trainwreck of a person like they all seem to think he is. 

But he doesn't. 

He just lies there, on his side, on the living room floor, watching the light flicker. 

There's a knock on his door. André ignores it. The knock comes again, more insistent this time. André ignores it again. Finally, the lock clicks, and the door opens, and Grubi walks in. 

André looks up at him blearily, and curses the fact that he ever gave him a spare key. Grubi crouches down next to him, and offers him a hand. 

"I know." Grubi says, and there's something more comforting about it from him than anyone else. André takes his hand to sit himself up. "We're here to help."

"We?" André asks, and they all come in at once. Gabe, EJ, Sammy in tow, Tyson and JT, Cale and Gravy, Z wearing overalls for some reason, Mikko carrying a cooler full of beer. Belley comes in balancing a stack of pizzas, and behind him--

Nate barrels into him, kissing him deeply enough that Josty wolf whistles. 

"Bad day?" Nate asks, rubbing circles over his back. André nods, and Nate presses a soft kiss to his temple.

Gabe clears his throat, claps his hands to get everyone's attention. "All right boys. Let's get to work."

"Okay, Tim Gunn." EJ snorts, rolling his eyes. Sammy punches him in the shoulder.

"Be nice!" He chides, and EJ sticks his tongue out at him.

"You be nice!" He hisses, and Gabe rolls his eyes, and sets about assigning tasks. 

Then André's team just starts moving him in. JT and Josty tackle the TV stand, bickering over the Ikea instructions on the floor while Cale uses Gravy to hang up paintings. EJ volunteers to do the bedframe with Sammy, and Frankie goes along to make sure they don't hook up in André's bed. They all choose a spot or a job, and every time André hovers over them, trying to help or direct, they shoo him away. 

"Why are they doing this?" André asks Grubi, who is sorting through the mess that is André's kitchenware. 

Grubi rolls his eyes. "What are you talking about? We're team. We just should've done this a lot sooner." He holds up a skinny, silicon tool with a flared base. "What the hell is this, some kind of fancy whisk?"

André looks at it and snorts. "That's not for the kitchen." 

Grubi looks at it, and then at André, and then back to it, and then back to André. "You are disgusting." Grubi snarls, and throws it at his chest. 

André laughs and catches it, hurrying off to deposit it where it should be.

Nate has the dildo box with him in the walk-in closet, examining each one carefully as he places them in a drawer. He takes the one André hands him and inspects it carefully.

"You should show me what all of these do." Nate says completely seriously.

"I could give a few demonstrations." André tells him. Nate leans up to kiss him softly.

"I'm glad you came, you know." Nate tells him, quiet so the others don't hear him. "I'm really glad you're here."

André looks around, hears the sounds of his team, his friends, building and bickering and making him a home. He looks at Nate, eyes shining, and he smiles, pressing their foreheads together. 

"I'm really fucking glad I'm here."

//

After everyone goes home but Nate, full of pizza and beer and accomplished, he and Nate fuck in André's bed for the first time. Nate basically bends him over, one hand on his back and the other holding his hole open to lick into him. 

André's dizzy with it, keening with every lap of Nate's tongue past his rim. Nate replaces his hand to hold him up with the breadth of his shoulder, fishing around for something.

He finds it, and André feels something cold and wet with lube push against his hole. It's familiar soft silicone and fake veins, and André rolls his eyes.

"Really, just the dildo? That's your first choice? Nathan, you're bigger than it."

"I'm bigger than most of these." Nate deadpans, and he slides the rest of the dildo into André until he settles against the flared e base.

André's breath catches as Nate gets a rhythm with it, pulling it out so the tip catches on the rim of his hole before slamming it back in, again and again.

Nate's good at fucking him, in any way, all natural talent and grace applied to taking André apart with his dick, but there's something especially good about Nate using a toy, able to manipulate it with those award winning hands, those top five players in the NHL hands, those absolute, beautiful cheat code hands. 

Still, André wants more, and he's not shy about begging for it. Nate smirks at the sound of him and sets him down on his back, and when André is keening for it, close to vibrating right out of his skin, he replaces the head of the dildo with his warm, heavy cock. 

"No condom, right?" André asks, and Nate nods. They'd talked it out earlier, figuring getting tested before the start of the season was fine enough--and André figured it was worth it confessing that he'd only exchanged lame, drunken handjobs with that guy whose name he couldn't remember, given how on board Nate was immediately after he said it. 

Nate picks up where the dildo left off beautifully, fucking André with a determined cadence that shudders his newly made bedframe underneath him. He flips him over onto his hands and knees, draping over André as he fucks into him. André’s hand struggles for purchase on the bedsheets, and Nate leans over, lacing their fingers together as they rock against each other.

André comes first, having had something in his ass for the better part of an hour now, staining the sheets Belley had freshly laundered. Nate doesn't take long after that, whispering André's name as a warning before he collapses against him, pumping his load deep inside of André. He feels it leak out of his rim and over his thighs, and luxuriates in the funk of it for a little while. Nate must notice too, and André can feel the weight of Nate’s gaze before he laps his tongue over to lick it up. André can feel him leaning into it, ready to go for it as full throttle as he always does, and puts a hand on Nate's shoulder.

"Oh, right." Nate says, sounding just a little dazed, and he hurries to root around for something next to him. The butt plug is cold and metallic, but when Nate settles it in, pushing in as much come as he can with it, André feels full and satisfied.

//

André gets back on the ice, and he feels fresh and ebullient, brimming with potential. He meets eyes with Nate across the ice and knows: he'll show them all.

They're tied against the Bruins, and André shuttles the puck into their zone. It bounces against a linesman and free, and André knows he's faster than these guys, just knows it. He slips past them, looks for a pass but knows he's all alone. 

He has a shot, and he takes it, following through so hard he falls on his ass. He sees the puck go in before anyone else, and the horn sounds, and André has scored his first goal as a member of the Colorado Avalanche. 

Sammy and Cale and Donskoi all barrel into him, and he beams brighter than anything. 

Nate brushes his shoulder as they switch off with each other, and looks at him, eyes shining with excitement, and lust, and so much pride, and a little bit of something else too, that André holds close to his chest, just for himself.

"Nice shot, Gamewinner," Nate says to him in the locker room as they're getting dressed. 

"You know better than anyone how well I shoot." André flirts back. They don't even get out of the car that night before blowing each other in the parking lot, André ruining Nate's expensive suit by coming all over his face, and Nate doesn't even care.

André scores the gamewinner again in OT the next game against Arizona, and Nate takes him aside after the game.

"You're fucking me tonight." Nate tells him.

"Don't we do that every night?" André asks. Nate shakes his head.

"No, you're fucking me."

André almost chokes on his coconut water.

"Have you bottomed a lot?" André asks later, coating his fingers in lube.

"Not a lot." Nate admits. "But I'm not against it." He glances over at André, who is definitely putting too much lube on his hands. "Do you top a lot?"

André snorts. "Not a lot." He echoes. "But I'm not against it."

"Just relax." Nate says, grabbing André by the wrist and guiding his hand down to his hole. "And fuck me, babe."

André nods, determined, and slides an experimental finger into Nate. Nate's breath catches.

"More." He grunts, and André eases in another finger. André rocks the fingers in, searching for the right spot. He crooks his fingers, and Nate gasps, bucking against him. 

André notes the spot and rucks his fingers against it, adding another ambitiously. Nate groans, arching his hips down to fuck himself on André's fingers as André opens him up. It’s a lot faster than André’s used to with Nate, reminds him of rushed hook-ups on the road, but in a good way--like they’ve learnt enough about each other to skip the foreplay, sometimes. 

"Now, now!" Nate barks, and André scrambles to lube himself up and slide in. Nate is all tight, powerful muscle corded with exertion as André fucks into him for the first time.

André leans into him, fucks him with everything he's got, gives Nate his all just like they have since they met each other. He runs his teeth over the skin of Nate's neck, mumbling in Swedish as he tells Nate how good he is, how hot he is, how lucky André was that Nate would ever take notice of him and got them here, together. 

Nate hooks one hand around the headboard as André pounds him into it, and André savors the sight of him, fucked apart into a million pieces, all his carefully constructed composure gone underneath him. He meets André's eyes, and André leans down to kiss him, drinking in every tiny noise and keen he draws out of him.

"Nate, I'm going to come," he warns.

"Do it babe, inside me, do it." Nate demands, half incoherent to the point of being greedy, and André can't help but indulge him. André fills him up, holding his hips flush against Nate's to get as much in as possible.

As soon as he catches his breath, he plunges down between Nate's legs to lick his own come out of his hole, driving his tongue in deep to collect every drop.

Nate writhes underneath him, and André grabs ahold of his cock, jacking him off in long, quick motions until he's striping his chest with his come. 

"Oh, you get to do it when you want to?" Nate jokes, out of breath, wiping some come off of André's lip with his tongue and licking it off. André rolls his eyes and kisses him, filthy as they are.

//

The next day, they fly to DC, and André is terrified in spite of himself. 

It would be poetic, he guesses, for the Avs' win streak to end against his former team. It'd be a sick, bad poem, which is why André hates poems, but it would be poetic.

Nate holds his hand on the drive to André's house to pick up his luggage, warm and solid, and follows him inside. 

As they're heading out he pushes André against the doorframe of his room and kisses him, heavy and deep. He feels like an anchor, and André's more than happy to grab on. Nate presses something cool and metal into his hand. "I got you something, to keep you busy." 

André glances down. "We already have a plug." He says, confused. It looks a little sleeker than the one he bought, and there's a little glowy bit, but otherwise it's not too different.

Nate pulls his phone out, and presses a few things, and the plug starts to vibrate in André's hand. 

"Oh." André says, watching it go. Nate presses something else, and it starts to vibrate faster. "Oh." He says again. "And you want me to?"

Nate smiles at him.

"Oh," André says for a third time, grinning ear to ear.

André keeps it out going through airport security, minimal as their charter plane's security is, and heads to the bathroom right after takeoff. The plug fits nicely in his ass, shifting inside him as he walks. He winks at Nate as he passes him to settle into his seat next to Grubi, who wordlessly hands André an ear bud so they can watch Ratatouille together.

There's a buzz at his side, and for a second André thinks Nate has turned the plug on, but it's just a message from Nate.

Nate: hows it feel babe

André: weird but good

Nate: im switching it on now

André: 😩😩😩

Nothing happens for a little bit, and André gets caught up in watching the movie with Grubi. 

"You know, this twink kind of looks like you." Grubi remarks.

André stares at him, eyes wide. "The rat?"

Grubi pauses for a second, like he's considering. "Yes, the rat." 

"I guess you could call him a twink but--" 

The plug pulses in André's ass once, and starts to buzz, a rolling stab of pleasure that washes over him. André squirms a little in his seat, trying to shift it in a way that just kind of makes it worse.

Grubi raises an eyebrow at him. "You all right?" He asks. 

André offers him a watery smile and a thumbs up. 

André tries to focus on the movie, though through the whole thing he starts to think that maybe hiding a little rat chef under your hat that controls you like a jaeger at your job as a chef is a lot like hiding a vibrating butt plug in your ass on a plane full of your teammates and colleagues on the way to go see everyone you used to work with, in a poetical sense. Damn, André doesn't understand poetry.

"You know what, Grub, I think I am actually kind of like this twink rat." André mutters. 

Grubi squints at him. 

Nate: you doing okay? im turning it up

There's another pulse, and the plug starts to vibrate faster now. André grits his teeth, holding the arm rest tightly. 

"You never used to get airsick." Grubi notes suspiciously. 

"Might be an altitude thing!" André gets out, unbuckling his seatbelt hurriedly. "I'm gonna take a walk, check out the poker game." He says.

"All right, but if someone dies I'm gonna spoil you," Grubi says. 

Calvy, Z, Nieto, and Kammy are all playing poker on the tray tables in the back of the plane. Kammy and Z have their shirts off, for whatever reason, and Nietsy is wearing Kammy's shirt like a hat. 

"Who's winning?" André asks, trying to lean nonchalantly against one of the seats. 

Z says, "Me," at the same time as the other three say, "Not Z."

Nate: you having fun? 

André: 👿

Nate: 😇

Nate: gonna make a scene in front of everyone?

Nate: ruin this poker game by being mad horny

Nate: make me bend you over these seats in front of everyone

André: fu ck u

Nate: not yet

Nate: turning you up

André: ur e vik ev i b

Nate: 😘

André grips the seat tight lurching as the plug speeds up even more, starts sending shuddering pulses through his body.

"All good, André?" Calvy asks. 

"Not g--good at fl--flying!" He manages, through gritted teeth. Calvy nods sagely.

"Colin gets that way too." Calvy says thumbing towards the front of the plane. "That's why we make Cale hold his hand." 

"You want Cale hold your hand?" Z asks. Kammy snorts.

"No, he want Nate to hold his hand, idiot." Kammy hisses at him. 

"More than hold his hand." Nieto says, deadpan. André suddenly remembers the Fortnite game, and his dick twitches, and he whines audibly. 

"Dogg, take care of your boy!" Z hollers across the plane, and André takes that as the cue to stumble towards the bathroom. 

He makes his way in, shoving past the curious looks of the rest of the team and bursts into the bathroom, shoving down his shorts to paw at the plug as much as he can. 

While he's doing that, Nate muscles his way into the bathroom. He takes one look at André, flushed and desperate, pushing a plug into himself, and leans down to kiss him.

Nate's hand replaces his own, pressing the plug in and up against André's prostate. André makes an almost inhuman noise, trying to get as much purchase as he can crammed in a tiny bathroom with Nathan MacKinnon. 

"You're doing so good, babe." Nate reassures him, running his hand through his curls gently. Nate fishes out his phone and swipes down, and the plug starts to slow and relax. "I'm gonna turn it down until we get there, okay? It's a fine to jizz on the plane." 

André gives him a shuddering nod, and the first setting seems like nothing comparatively. He kisses Nate, as quick as he can, before Nate has to slip out. 

"It's a fine to fuck on the plane, MacKinnon!" He can hear EJ yell as Nate heads back down to his seat. The buzzing is still there, but manageable now, and André can clean himself up and catch his breath.

"Linguini died." Grubi says, as soon as he gets back to his seat. 

"Lucky him." André mutters, sinking into his seat and taking the other earbud from Grubi. 

Nate: stay strong babe

André: h8 u n all ur ideas

Nate: you don't

//

Between Grubi's rat movie and Nate's texts, André somehow manages to get through the rest of the plane ride. As soon as they reach their hotel, André makes a beeline for Nate's room, shoving past the snide commentary of his well-meaning but generally clueless teammates. 

"Not yet." Nate says, as André lays spread out like a starfish on his bed, bucking backwards against the mattress. 

"It's been hours, Nathan!"

"Then you can wait through practice." Nate says simply, and André groans into his pillow.

Nate frowns at him. "If it's too much for you, we can forget it and I can just get you off now." He says gently, laying a hand over André's shoulder. 

"No," André grumbles, pushing himself up to look at Nate. "I signed up for this, I'll see it through."

Nate furrows his brow. "I can do this." He says, and bodily arches André up by the hips. His hands are big enough to wrap around each of André's hips if he wanted, and that's a lot for André already.

Nate pulls down André's shorts and wraps one hand around his cock, the other slowly and methodically pushing the plug deeper into him. The plug's pulsing, which André has managed to get somewhat used to, intensifies as Nate pushes it up with his palm, grazing it against his prostate.

André moans, unsure which sensation to focus on, so he sort of arches wildly in each direction. Nate doesn't seem to mind either way, working both ends with equal focus, slow, deliberate strokes into him and over his cock.

As long as André's been waiting, it doesn't take long for him to feel the rush of his orgasm, and he tells Nate, who nods. Nate relieves the pressure on the plug and gives the base of André's cock one last squeeze before drawing away. André tries to lunge to replace his hands, but Nate puts his big body in the way. 

"After practice," Nate says.

"You said that would help!" André hisses through gritted teeth, chest heaving as he comes down from his lost orgasm. "Can I least get you off?" He asks. 

Nate shakes his head. "After practice," he says again.

"I hate you." André tells him.

"You don't." Nate replies, brushing a kiss over the top of his forehead.

//

It would probably be weird going to the Iceplex for practice as a visitor, if André wasn't so distracted. Instead, it's kind of nice to see the familiar rink staff and security guards saying hi to him and catching up about their families, as any momentary respite from the constant stuttering vibration in his ass. 

Nate weasels the coaching staff into keeping his phone on the bench with some story about a sick relative and everyone's mistaken belief that Nathan MacKinnon is not a cruel horny demon man who would abuse any trust to bully André sexually. He's also a lot less high-key about practice today, waving off some of the more high-intensity drills and spending more time joking around with EJ by the boards. 

Walking around and being on a plane with a plug up his ass was pretty bad, but being on the ice with it is worse. The pads push it in even further, and every stride André takes shifts it over his prostate. Incidentally, it's doing wonders for the power of his shots, considering how much he just wants to break something.

Nate turns it up after coach's drills are done, and André loses an edge and smacks right into Mikko. 

"Push-ups!" EJ crows from over by the bench. André looks pleadingly at Nate, who shrugs, and volunteers to count. 

"Real push-ups, Meeks." Nate warns Mikko, who smiles at him. 

"Eat my whole ass, MacKinnon." Mikko says cheerfully. 

"Retweet." André grumbles, and groans at the thought of it as he gets into push-up position. 

It's a little easier this way, actually, nothing moving the plug around. Or at least, it's easier until he actually does a push-up, and the plug rocks against his prostate in a way that makes André almost buckle and collapse. 

"One." Nate says. "Watch your form, Dré." He's loving this, obviously, savoring every moment. 

André grits his teeth and manages through the next few now that he expects it, powering through them as well as he can. Z shoots a puck under him, and André thinks about murdering him.

On the last one, he collapses into a heap on the ice, hips twitching, saved only by the fact that Mikko is doing the same thing without anything in his ass, presumably.

Nate smacks his ass with his stick evilly, right where the plug is, and André groans loudly. Mikko joins him, like a true bro.

They get through practice on the second setting, and Nate only keeps the normal crew on the ice after for half the time he usually does. André thinks he's home free, ready to pin Nate up against any surface, when Grubi stops him.

"You doing all right?" Grubi asks, halting him by the boards. André watches Nate linger in the entrance to the locker room. "I know it's hard, coming back."

Nate takes that opportunity to turn the plug up to its highest setting. 

"I'm fine!" André pretty much yelps. Grubi furrows his brow at him. "I'm deali--I've got it."

"Well, I'll set up another intervention if you don't." Grubi says. "Let's fuck em up, buddy." He says confidently. Then, perhaps possessed by the energy of being in DC again, he smacks André on the ass, slamming the plug deep into André as he does.

André keens and buckles against the gate, and Nate shows up to collect him. Grubi looks at the two of them, eyes wide, and scowls.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Grubi scoffs. "You're both degenerates, both of you!" He calls out after them, as Nate herds André into the locker room, stripping them both and shoving everything in his stall as he guides them towards the showers. 

André has never been in the visitor's shower here and it's a weird set up. There's a single pole with showerheads coming out of it, and there doesn't seem to be much privacy, but at this point, André doesn't really care.

"Grubi will keep anyone out." Nate reassures him. 

"Don't care." André tells him, already jacking himself off as he strides into the shower. "I've waited long enough, Nathan."

"Can't argue with that." Nate says, and he bends André over the pole and turns on the water.

The water is bracing, but warm enough, streaming in rivulets over his back. Nate sinks to his knees and twists the plug in André a little, fucking him with it in shallow, experimental thrusts. He starts to speed up, pounding it into him, wracking his body with vibrations before it all gets to be too much for André. 

"C'mon, babe, you can do it. Come for me, baby." Nate says, laying kisses over his shoulders, holding the plug over his prostate as it pulses André apart, and André finally, finally lets go. He comes all over his stomach and thighs, some of it hitting his chin and into his curls, though most of it splatters over the pole and the shower floor.

Nate takes a second to admire his handiwork and let André catch his breath before he pulls the plug out of André's hole slowly. André whines at the sensation, at the alien feeling of being empty.

Luckily, André doesn't have to feel it for long as Nate goes tongue first into his ass. With one hand, André hears him throw the plug into the corner. 

"What if I wanted to use that again?" André grits out.

Nate draws back from where he's licking into André's hole. "I'll get you a new one." He says, before scraping his teeth the cleft of André's ass. Nate slides in two fingers alongside his tongue, André's hole so open for him it's barely a tight fit, and André bucks against the shower pole at the feeling of being full again, but it's still not enough.

"Nathan, fuck me." He basically growls, and Nate pushes himself up by André's back to comply. 

André is open enough that Nate can slide right in, and he gets to it with wild abandon. One hand comes up to nestle in André's curls, pulling his head back as Nate fucks into him, slams his hips against his ass like a jackhammer. André feels weightless, floating with the familiar feeling of Nate's cock inside of him, and suddenly he is floating Nate wrapping an arm around him and pulling him up into the air without breaking his rhythm, fucking up into André only by his own strength. 

Nate swivels them around and slams André up against the wall, the shower tile cool against André's back as Nate pounds into him. Nate's mouth latches onto the fading mark on André's neck and he bites down over it.

Nate murmurs over the mark, reverent. "You're mine, I've got you, you're mine and I'm yours." André presses their forehead together and angles down to kiss him. 

"You're mine and I'm yours." André echoes, full of it now, the feeling that being fucked up against the shower wall of the visitor's locker room in DC is exactly where he's supposed to be. He can feel Nate's hips stuttering, his cock pulsing inside him "Finish for me, Nathan. Finish in me."

Nate yells, muffled only by André's shoulder as his orgasm rockets through him and he comes, filling André up again. 

They collapse together in a heap, filthy on the shower floor, exchanging kisses until they actually get clean.

Grubi and pretty much everyone else is gone when they wander out of the shower and Nate has to set up a Lyft to take them back to the hotel. 

As soon as they step out of the practice rink, André gets a call from Nicky.

"Your practice took forever. You're having dinner with us." Nicky says, without a greeting. 

"How did you know I was out of practice?" André asks, not really sure if he wants to know the answer.

"I still have you on Find my Friends." Nicky answers. "Stop eating so much Chipotle." He says, and then he hangs up.

"Do you want me to come?" Nate asks, not even trying to pretend he wasn't listening.

"God I would," André says, running his hands through his curls. "But I don't trust these assholes not to kidnap you and tie you up in one of their basements so you can't play."

"And they wouldn't kidnap you?" Nate asks, sounding concerned.

André waves him off. "Sure, but you'd come get me." 

//

Dinner turns out to be just Nicky, Liza, and the kids. Liza gives him a long, lingering hug at the door and introduces him to Alizee, who is one of the cutest, tiniest babies André has ever seen, aside from his nephew. 

"We miss you," Lisa tells him across the table. She thumbs at Nicky. "Him most of all." 

Nicky takes another sip from his wine. "I don't think about you at all." He lies. André beams at him. 

Later, Nicky makes André help with dishes, which is code for talking with him privately while the dishwasher runs and they open another bottle of wine.

"Gabbe treating you all right in Denver?" Nicky asks, leaning backwards against the counter. "If he's not I'll find a way to get you back." It sounds like a joke, but André knows he's serious.

"They're all great, really." André tells him, trying to sound as sincere as he can because they are, the whole team, his whole team, has been everything he's wanted and more.

Nicky finishes off his drink and sets it on the counter. "And are you happy?"

André thinks about it. He thinks about his game, about getting the minutes he wants, scoring the goals they need. He thinks about the team, clowning on each other at every opportunity but still showing up for him even when he doesn't ask them. He thinks about Nate. He thinks about being a person out of his own context, and having to find an entirely new one from scratch.

"I think I'm getting there." André says, and Nicky seems satisfied with that.

//

During warm ups, Nate smashes their foreheads together, pushing him across the ice with the sheer force of him.

"Show them what you're fucking made of, babe." Nate tells him, the roar of a crowd that isn't his own in his ears, and André smiles.

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> peace, check me out on [tumblr](https://samgirard.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/jpeggings) while i quietly plug along on the sequel about nate when toronto comes to town


End file.
